Shoot for the moon, and if you miss,
you'll land among the stars. That ancient adage serves to remind us
that dreaming big and daring to achieve the impossible is often its
own reward, even if it does turn out to be, y'know, impossible.
Christopher Nolan sets his sights well beyond our puny moon in
Interstellar. He's not even aiming for the same galaxy! So if
he launches a misfire, it sure as hell is an intriguing misfire, and
probably the most essential science-fiction of the year.
His space opera begins on Earth
sometime in the future (Nathan Crowley's weathered production design
suggests a future that's distant in technological advancement but
aesthetically not unlike our present), when violent dust storms are a
routine bother and most of the planet's crops have gone extinct due
to blight. There's plenty of corn though, both in the fields and on
the page in Nolan's typically creaky expository dialogue.
