Interstellar Review

Matthew McConaughey scored big with last year's film Dallas Buyers Club, but can he back up that Oscar winning performance with another masterful one? The short answer is, yes.

In the new film Interstellar, McConaughey plays Cooper, a former engineer and pilot for NASA who has been forced, along with much of the world, to resort to farming.  In this Malthusian-like bleak future, the Earth has run out of resources and the food supply has dwindled due to major blights affecting crops world wide.  Populations have plummeted and we come to find out that the Earth is dying. In order to save human kind NASA has secretly been conducting a mission to find a new home planet suitable for humans.  Aiding this search was the discovery of a worm hole near Saturn that someone or something placed there to help save the human race. McConaughey faces the terribly difficult decision to either stay with his children on our dying planet and wait for death or leave his family behind, perhaps never seeing them again, in hopes of  discovering a new planet for his family and mankind.  Ultimately for the good of his family he chooses to search for the new planet.  He and his crew, which includes Anne Hathaway as Brand and Wes Bentley as Doyle, head through the wormhole and into deep space in hopes of saving humankind.  

This film is done brilliantly with a well written story by writer and director Christopher Nolan as well as great acting from McConaughey, Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain as McConaughey's grown up daughter Murph.  Although it is possible this film won't receive the same buzz and award season recognition as other films due to its sci-fi nature, McConaughey's role playing a father and the emotions he went through from leaving his kids behind to the heartbreaking scene of him watching them grow up via space transmission evoked major emotions on screen and with the audience.  McConaughey's portrayal of Cooper leaves me no doubt that he is one of the best actors in Hollywood today.   In addition to McConaughey, this star studded cast does an amazing job of acting.  With such big names as John Lithgow, Michael Caine, and Matt Damon, the film has plenty of big name acting talent and it shows through on screen.  

Although the film has a rather bleak outlook of our possible future on Earth, the tag line of the movie does indeed offer a glimmer of hope.  "Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here." Indeed we will find a way to endure.  The message of this film resonates at a time when we face major issues across the globe and many people foresee widespread food and resource shortages in our future.  This well written story hits close to home while being an original story at a time when reboots and sequels dominate the box office.  I give this film a resounding 5 out of 5 stars and recommend you see this film with some Kleenex if you are a parent.