In the decade since the theatrical release of Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has solidified his position as a champion of the big screen. Interstellar was undoubtedly Nolan’s most ambitious film to date when it was released; it was shot with more IMAX cameras than any of his other films, and the end product is a stunning science fiction adventure that spans entire galaxies. However, the tenderness at the core of the screenplay is what makes this movie most memorable, not the spectacle of its visuals.
The near-future world that Interstellar imagines is experiencing a climate catastrophe, which, to be honest, seemed like a more dystopian idea ten years ago than it does now. With the planet experiencing severe famine and blight, and its natural resources running low, it is up to the people who haven’t perished from starvation or asphyxiation to figure out how to save humanity. Interstellar space travel to locate a different planet in a different galaxy is the solution. Because we might as well colonize a new planet if we can’t save this one, right?
With its mind-bending treatment of time and physics, numerous chalkboards covered in intricate mathematical equations, and, of course, a deceased wife, Interstellar possesses all the characteristics of a classic Nolan movie. In contrast to Nolan’s earlier films, this one stands out for its overtly sentimental tone. Despite its lofty themes of space exploration and looming environmental catastrophes, Interstellar is fundamentally a ghost story about time passing and the resilience of a father’s love in the face of every possible—and unthinkable—threat.
Ex-NASA pilot-turned-farmer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) chooses to accompany a group of scientists on a quest to discover another habitable planet after he is forced to consider leaving his kids to slowly die on a dying planet. Cooper departs Earth by vowing to return to his family no matter how long it takes, despite his daughter Murphy’s (Mackenzie Foy) protests. Motivated by this pledge and his resolve to preserve his kids’ future, Cooper embarks on a quest that leads him through black holes and across (event) horizons.
Beneath the surface of Nolan’s famed time-bending and mind-blowing plots, these films frequently reflect a committed search for the strength of fatherhood. His references to the sanctity of the family home are scarcely discrete or subtle, and the father’s role is a specter that haunts the director’s filmography.
In The Prestige, magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) rewards himself for defeating his rival by reuniting with his daughter at the end of the film. This is typical of his protagonists, who are men who struggle to return to their children with differing degrees of success. The same is true in Inception, where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb only permits his reunion with his kids after facing his guilt over his wife’s suicide and letting himself mourn her passing. Both of these characters view children as a priceless gift that should be treasured and not taken for granted. As is frequently the case with a Nolan screenplay, the protagonist of Interstellar is motivated by his vow to return to his daughter, rather than by grief or guilt.
But, as the director himself states, Interstellar is more than just another sci-fi blockbuster; it is ultimately about “the sense of your life passing you by and your kids growing up before your eyes.” Nolan’s vision of black holes and vast, desolate planets makes the film captivating to watch. When an accident forces Cooper to spend more than 20 Earth years on a different planet, you can see the destruction on his face as he comes to terms with what he just missed.
Cooper’s unintentional decades on this planet are an irreversible mistake, and upon his return, he discovers a long list of video messages from his kids, who were waiting for his response from Earth. 23 years compressed into three minutes, he watches his son Tom (played by a young Timothée Chalamet at first, then by Casey Affleck) grow before his eyes. He sees Tom graduate, get married, and, regrettably, lose his first son.
The speed at which time flies by as a parent seems exaggerated—one moment you’re dropping your children off for school, and the next you blink, they’re living on their own. When Cooper realizes how many years have passed between them, he breaks down, and as he sobs uncontrollably and reaches for the screen, he silently begs his kids to stay with him. It seems like this might have been all for nothing. Perhaps spending those years with his children would make the total annihilation of humanity worthwhile.
Encouraged by his resolve to reclaim what time he still has, Cooper traverses both space and time, supported at every turn by his vow to visit his daughter from all those years ago. His discovery that he is in a tesseract composed of an endless number of copies of Murphy’s bedroom, suspended in time, is the film’s most poignant moment. He sobs at the tangible representation of all the years he missed before understanding that Murphy—and her love for him—was the crucial element all along.
Realizing that he can use these moments to communicate with Murphy from across the twin gulfs of time and space, Cooper finds himself literally imprisoned in a prison of his own creation, floating in this interdimensional library of his daughter’s life. His first is straightforward: a last-ditch effort to persuade his former self to stay by his daughter’s side, he translated the word “STAY” using binary code and dust on Murphy’s bedroom floor.
The second thing he says is more clinical. Cooper left an old watch with Morse code that contains the data Murphy needs to finally finish the solution to save humanity. Cooper promised to compare their relative times with Murphy when he returned. Cooper’s return to his daughter was inevitable, as Murphy claims at the film’s conclusion, and she always knew he would return because “my dad promised me.” Only decades later, when Murphy is surrounded by her own children, can she finally let go of her father with certainty. As Murphy lies in a hospital bed with several generations of her family surrounding her, she realizes that her father fulfilled his promise and that he is a part of the stars. She says, “I have my kids here for me now,” as she takes his hand one final time. You depart.
Christopher Nolan frequently demands that his movies be viewed without him in mind, which is a clear directive to keep the artist and the work apart. But with Interstellar, which was actually shot under the title Flora’s Letter—Flora being the name of Nolan’s only daughter—it seems impossible to accomplish this. At one point in the movie, the director of the space missions, Professor Brand (played by Michael Caine), reflects that “love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” It’s a very sentimental line that sums up the whole movie’s argument in one sentence.
One of the most emotionally vulnerable films that director Christopher Nolan has ever produced, Interstellar is a tribute to fatherhood disguised as a lavish science fiction disaster film. In the ensuing years, the filmmaker would steer clear of the personal in favor of projects with more detached narratives, and it would take nearly a decade for him to return to fatherhood concepts in Oppenheimer, where the physicist’s glaring disregard for his kids is cited as one of his many shortcomings (Oppenheimer’s acceptance of the moniker “father of the atomic bomb” while ignoring his real kids on several occasions throughout the movie was a great move on Nolan’s part).
The director of Interstellar insists that we believe in the ability of love to save humanity, despite the cheesy nature of the request. Nolan’s respect for the role of fatherhood is neither subtle nor discrete. How could we possibly refuse, looking back from a planet that is constantly deteriorating at a political moment when it seems like there is no hope left?
