The one-line review is that Interstellar is the movie that 2001 should have been. It has a mysterious anomaly orbiting Saturn, a realistic depiction of a space mission to investigate and explore. But it also has so much more: incredible, moving performances from the leading actors and actresses, an emotional investment on both the personal and the species level, strange and wonderful and terrible things to find, and a powerful human drama that plays out across that background.
The movie is not without flaws. It starts slowly. There’s some emotional tearjerking (effective, but manipulative). The hard science approach sort of devolves in the ending. And I can’t really talk a lot about the plot without spoiling it. But it’s a good movie, highly recommended, very pretty, very inspiring, with a few subtle hints of conservative-leaning politics.
