But open yourself up to it, and Interstellar becomes one of the most emotionally overwhelming things you’ll ever see.
One of the saddest, loneliest space epics ever made, Nolan’s expansive sci-fi film — about Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway traveling through a wormhole to another part of the universe in an effort to find a new home for humanity — was divisive when it came out, but it’s slowly being acknowledged as one of his best works. It’s certainly his most earnest movie, and maybe the mixture of eye-popping special effects, gee-whiz scientific phenomena, environmental dystopia, and unabashed sentiment was too much for some to take, as if 2001: A Space Odyssey had been hijacked by someone’s therapy session. At heart, this is a story about parents and children, about the fear of letting go, about the need to reconcile your dreams with the needs of your loved ones. At the same time, it’s a movie about survival — how planetary survival and species survival and individual survival often conflict with one another. The way Nolan ties these concepts together in a narrative that mixes heavy-duty scientific theories with nutty sci-fi invention can be jarring. But open yourself up to it, and Interstellar becomes one of the most emotionally overwhelming things you’ll ever see.