Interstellar

I don’t watch many movies as a rule. Not that I don’t want to — it’s just that by the time I get around to thinking about catching a given film, it has usually left our local theater and then it’s an even chance whether I’ll catch it on Netflix/AmazonPrime. I did make a note to catch this one, though, because several people had mentioned that it is really remarkable.

Even though I’m a sucker for hard sci-fi like this film, I enjoyed it for what I think are legitimate reasons. As is always the case with Mr Nolan the atmospherics were perfect. I expecially appreciate the way that the film sets us in a world where there’s a lot going on, mostly bad, but neither bogs down in exposition nor merely settles for the grey goo of a dystopia (itself a pattern wherein writers often expect to gain credit for deep thinking without actually doing the deep thinking).

Two details that stand out to me: the film’s utterly silent scenes in space, where of course the various movements of the spacecraft would make no noise; and the film’s attempt to take seriously the relationships between mass, time, and space — where there are no short trips in the cosmos, and where the weight of long isolation must be dealt with forthrightly.

And a beautiful but non-conclusive ending.