I Just Watched Interstellar For The First Time. Why I’m Glad I Waited On The Christopher Nolan Movie Until I Had Kids
We all have strange gaps in our knowledge when it comes to the movies we’ve seen. I was shocked to learn that, until recently, my colleague Eric Eisenberg, who has watched well over 100 movies a year for the entire time I have known him, had never seen Gladiator. It’s surprising that a guy who loves movies had not seen a movie that was both a box office hit and a Best Picture winner. And so it’s weird that I, the guy who has written CinemaBlend’s best sci-fi movies list, had never seen Interstellar.
Until this week, that was the case. To be fair, in 10 years I thought I knew enough about it. I thought I knew the basic story (more on that shortly) and I knew the Interstellar ending was hotly discussed, even if I didn’t know the details. What else did I need to know? Well, I took the opportunity to find out when I saw Interstellar was now available with my Netflix subscription, and gave it a watch. I’m so glad I waited 10 years to see it.
I Would Have Liked Interstellar In 2014, But For Very Different Reasons
I checked my personal way back machine to try and figure out just why I had never seen a sci-fi movie from Christopher Nolan, a description which should have gotten me into the theater instantly 10 years ago. As it happens, the movie originally came out just a week or two after I got laid off from a job in my previous career, so my focus at the time was probably not on whatever got released that weekend.
I’m sure I would have liked Interstellar if I had seen it when it was released in October 2014. I probably would have loved it. Science fiction that goes heavy on science, focuses on drama and questions things like the nature of time or reality is my jam. I ate it up then and I still do today.
But I wouldn’t have related to Interstellar the way I did when I saw it now. The emotional core of the movie is the relationship between a father and daughter, and as somebody who had no kids in 2014, but has two daughters today, I get it.
Interstellar View Of Time Is Something I’ve Come To Understand
It’s not that I don’t think I could relate to the characters of Interstellar without kids, and I’m not here to tell you that if you don’t have kids you can’t possibly appreciate the movie (I can’t stand people like that). However, I will say that I personally connected with the movie now in a way I know I would not have then.
Interstellar isn’t just about a relationship between a father and daughter who love each other. You don’t need to be a parent to get that, just have had one you cared about greatly. But the movie takes things a step further.
Like so many of Christopher Nolan’s movies, time plays a key role. But it’s not just about how time is running at different speeds on Earth or in space, it’s about how time runs on a longer scale for parents because existence doesn’t end when we do. It continues with our children.
Interstellar is presented as two parallel stories, one following a father and another following his daughter. But really, it’s one story that begins with the parent and continues with the child after her father is gone.
It Turns Out I Had No Idea What Interstellar Was Actually About
If there’s a popular movie you’ve never seen, you can probably still give a basic description of what it’s about. Being part of pop culture often makes it so we pick up these things. There’s a decent chance you knew Rosebud was a sled before ever watching Citizen Kane. My kids have yet to watch a Star Wars movie, but they know Darth Vader’s relationship to Luke Skywalker.
In the same vein, I thought I knew what Interstellar was about. I knew Matthew McConaughey played an astronaut named Coop on an interstellar journey. I knew the concept of time dilation played a part, and that it would impact his character’s relationship with his family. I’d certainly seen the meme of McConaughey sobbing which is probably the film’s most enduring image.
While all that is part of Interstellar, it’s a pretty brief description of only half the movie. There’s a whole other part of the film that I honestly enjoyed more which is, I think, the better part of the film. It takes place back on Earth and follows what humanity is doing, and it’s the heart of everything.
Jessica Chastain Plays The Character Interstellar Is Really All About
If I had ever learned that Jessica Chastain was even in Interstellar, it’s a fact I had long since forgotten. So I was shocked to see her as the adult version of Murph, the grown-up daughter of McConaughey character. I was even more surprised when she became a focal part of the story.
There was a point in Interstellar when I found myself nearly blubbering like Coop does watch the messages from home, (or like Timothee Chalmet did learning his Interstellar role had been cut down), but it wasn’t that moment. It came much later when Coop is trying to figure out how to pass messages through time to his daughter. The robot companion TARS wonders if sending the needed information to a child will be of any good. Cooper believes his daughter will understand. He never even hesitates.
I don’t exactly expect to be sending high-concept mathematical data across space and time to my kids, but at the end of the day, my goal as a father is to teach my kids enough that they can figure out the rest for themselves.
Coop lives my dream as a father at the end of Interstellar. He gets to see what his daughter has become and is relieved to discover she was happy. I don’t need my kids to literally save the world, though the way things are going, they may need to. I just hope that they’re happy, and I hope I live to see it.
Interstellar is a great movie, and I’m so glad I saw it. But even if I was rewatching it after 10 years, I don’t think it would have had the same impact that it did watching it now for the first time. Some things are worth the wait.
