To celebrate Alan's birthday last year, we went to see the movie that Alan had been eagerly awaiting since the very first trailer---
Interstellar.
Besides a gigantic love of Christopher Nolan, Alan posesses this inexplicable LOVE FOR MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY. So, of course we went to see this for his birthday. It's the movie Alan's been waiting for his whole life. And I have to admit that the trailers intrigued me, as much as I was dreading watching a movie that was 169 minutes long (the suspense of a movie that long makes me anxious).
I was careful to stay away from spoilers or other news/opinions before we saw it, because I could just feel it. Interstellar (and just any Nolan film in general) is the kind of movie you have to go into blind. I knew it would be the kind of experience best experienced untainted by pre-conceived notions. And I was right.
Maybe it's the woman hormones in me (and who cares if it is--that's a real part of my experiences, and I just learn to deal with it), but I sat in the theater as the credits rolled....and cried.
Here's why: I often find myself locked into stupid things in my life--like sitting in front of my phone or computer--often for fun, often for school. Sitting with my face so close to a soul-sucking device does not give much room for perspective in my mind. But sometimes, when I read a good book, or hear a soulful piece of music, it makes me stop--it's like everything stupid in my life just drops away and I am reminded of what's important in life. I had one of those moments during Interstellar.
I'm going to BLOW THE ENDING OUT OF THE WATER. So if you haven't seen the movie PLEASE CLOSE THIS TAB. STOP IT. YOU MUST WATCH IT HAVING SEEN OR HEARD NOTHING BEFORE.
GET AWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE.
Just a recap:
Cooper is an engineer turned farmer because crops are failing and we need food more than we need NASA (which, unfortunately, I would probably agree with in a situation like theirs--but I'm not a former NASA engineer). He and his brilliant daughter Murphy (I did feel like his son, Tom, got the short end of the stick, relationship-wise) discover the hidden headquarters of NASA, thanks to the gravitational message sent by some unknown person/ghost. Cooper is enlisted to go on a mission to find a new world because the situation on earth is more dire than normal people understand. He goes with a few people (including Anne Hathaway) and things get out of hand--the first world they go to is uninhabitable and near a black hole; by the time they get back, 23 years have passed and his children are grown. The second one is icy and cold, and Matt Damon assures them it's habitable down at the 'surface' and then tries to kill Cooper and leave the rest of them stranded in space so he can escape, but dies. At this point, Coop sends Brand (Hathaway) to the last world by slingshotting their ship around the black hole and sacrificing himself so that the lack of weight can help her get there. He falls into the black hole, but doesn't die. He realizes that inside the black hole is a place where time is a physical dimension, and he sends a series of messages to his daughter Murphy (who has been training with Brand's father to figure out a way to get their space station off the ground so they can save humanity) through her bedroom, telling her how to solve the equation that will help her finish and save the human race. Then he is catapulted out of the black hole and ends up floating near Saturn, where rangers from the Cooper Space Station (named for his daughter) pick him up and bring him to meet his daughter, finally, just before she dies. She tells him to go find Brand, and he leaves. End of movie.
Holy crud that's complicated--and I made that as brief as freaking possible. Anyway, if you're still reading, here's what I think: 1) loved the relativity/non-linear time stuff, 2) loved the last 30 minutes because reasons that I'll explain, 3) loved the idea that science doesn't get you all the way there (die evolution!), 4) I dig the black hole concept and the idea of 5 dimensions for reasons, and 5) I felt like this view of things fit really well with what we believe as Latter-Day Saints.
First, the relativity stuff. I'm not a huge sci-fi watcher, so I'm not entirely sure how this is handled in other movies, but from what I've read, I understand that this movie took it in a different direction than usual. I don't even care about that. I just love it. I'm a firm believer in non-linear time. As Latter-Day Saints, we are taught that we cannot understand time as it is to God, and I firmly believe that. For Christopher Nolan to incorporate that into his story throughout the movie and then more fully at the end was beautiful. The idea that we are 3 Dimensional beings and that there are beings out there who live in 5 dimensions, in which time could possibly manifest itself as a physical dimension...is remarkably close to what I feel like it might maybe be like later on--though I don't and probably won't know until we get there. Ugh, this sounds really hokey. But I felt it. Bonus: Stephen Colbert asked Christopher Nolan if he really believes that time is like that, and he said yes.
Second, the last 30 minutes. Now this is essentially what I'm arguing in my entire post--the first 2.5 hours don't really matter without the last half hour of the dang movie. Whether or not you saw the ending coming and knew that Cooper was Murphy's ghost....it's a powerful plot point. As soon as they found out that Matt Damon was screwing them over, I thought: BRAND WAS RIght you SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE OTHER PLANET. SCIENCE ISN'T ALWAYS RIGHT (that rant will be continued later). But at the end I realized that all of the things they did before hinged on Cooper sending those messages, and he couldn't have sent them if he hadn't fallen into the black hole. Our failures and shortcomings and weaknesses will all work together to be for our good. God promises that. I don't believe it had to happen that way--if they had gone to the other planet first, I think things would have been fine, still. Or maybe not. The thing is, if we're going to treat a movie like a small piece of reality that could have been, wondering 'what if' is not productive (I'm more convincing myself here). It happened the way it did. Some higher being was able to see through time and give them the tools they needed to help themselves. Doesn't that sound like God? Except the beautiful thing is that Cooper realizes that it was him all along--HE had the power to be great and do a wonderful thing. And don't we all believe that we will be powerful, more-knowing beings someday? Eternity is a place where we will grow and progress in knowledge and wisdom and knowing.
Third, the science thing. If you've ever talked to me about what I study (Psychology) you'll know that I hold unconventional/unpopular opinions about science and the way that we study things. Basically, I think that the scientific method is held up as an idol and as an absolute truth when it's merely a viewpoint we have adopted to help us see the world more clearly. In some cases it does its job. In other cases.....(*ahem* PSYCHOLOGY *ahem*) it does not. I mean, I'm not against laboratories and experiments and going on expeditions to space. I love knowledge. I'm always asking "why?" when other people are content to know "what?" and it agitates my husband a lot. It is precisely this love of knowledge that makes me cautious to accept empirical knowledge as the god of the scientific world. There are types of knowing outside of that--and I feel like Brand's speech in the middle of the movie about how love is the only thing that transcends boundaries of science is one of the beautiful points of this movie. I loved how Cooper started out as a worshiper of science, only to finally come to acknowledge that love is the great motivator of the universe--that love was the part of the equation that brought it all the way there instead of 'almost'. Also death to evolution--it fundamentally sucks everything meaningful out of our lives, but....that rant will not be explored in full today.
Fourth, the black hole concept. I'm not a scientist. I hated Physical Science and Biology, and did well in neither. But I've read (and vaguely understood) gazillions of articles about why people didn't love this part because it was a stark departure from the scientific realism that Nolan tried to stick with throughout the rest of the movie. I will say this, to start: it's sci-fi, remember? Speculative fiction about/with science. So chill. Also: stand up if you've ever seen the inside of a black hole, or if you've ever been near one. That's right. NO ONE HAS. So excuse Nolan for having some fun with the unknown--especially to make such a metaphysically and philosophically relevant point. The 5 dimensions is not something I know a ton about, but I loved that concept. It was a sort-of concrete representation of the way that our lives could possibly be a different experience once we become like God. And if you don't agree, that's cool. But that's why I loved it. If we believe that God is all-knowing, all-seeing, and can be with us at the same time that he is with tons of other people, then why wouldn't it be plausible to say that he lives in a place where more dimensions are happening simultaneously? It might not be gospel truth, but it sure doesn't feel like a stupid idea.
Fifth. I've pretty much explained why I feel that this movie spoke to the religiousness inside of me. There is so much about the universe and even this world and especially about what it means to be that we just don't and maybe can't understand fully. I thought this movie was a beautiful exploration of concepts like that. Do I think Nolan's rendering of the universe is absolutely true? No. But I appreciated the way he wasn't afraid to grapple with ideas that are hard to grasp. I admire the way that he made a movie about science that wasn't all about the omniscience of science. I appreciate the way he handled the parts of being that I hold most dear.
That is why I sat in the theater after the credits started rolling and cried. Because Interstellar was, to me, a deeply spiritual journey into what the universe could mean if we ever got a chance to see it. It spoke to my heart, to that part of me that remembers what it was like to exist in a place where life was nothing as it is now.
AND FOR CRAP'S SAKE THE SOUNDTRACK
