On Tuesday, my husband and I settled in to see a 35mm screening of Interstellar, that movie that you need to see soon if you don't want to spend the next few months explaining to people that you haven't seen it. (Brett McCracken skillfully reviewed it for us when it released last week.)
I generally like Nolan's films, mostly because I like having my mind contorted. And, sorry, haters: I liked this one too, though it took me till That Really Crazy Mind-Bending Moment (you know the one) to be really into it. It's not really for the faint of heart, and there are definitely bits that don't work, story-wise. But in a pretty good year for movies, this is still a solid one.
The r/Religious movie question I've been writing about lately started clanging in my head right about when it looked like humanity was going extinct, which is to say in the opening credits. I didn't have a notebook handy, because I was trying to just watch the film and not write about it (hashtag fail).
But I did have some thoughts, and wanted to see what CT readers thought. So here are some conversation starters.
None of which is to say that Interstellar is a Christian—or even a religious—film. It is not, and this is the point. The "they" is not necessarily a metaphysical being; Zimmer's organ was chosen, he has said, for "its significance to science." Good and evil, faith and love—these ideas, of course, ...
1
You have reached the end of this Article Preview
To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access.
How we watch matters at least as much as what we watch. TV and movies are more than entertainment: they teach us how to live and how to love one another, for better or worse. And they both mirror and shape our culture.
Alissa Wilkinson is Christianity Today's chief film critic and assistant professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn.