Interstellar and Nightcrawler

Some thoughts on Interstellar and Nightcrawler.

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)

NO SPOILERS

Interstellar is one of the most daring and ambitious major Hollywood releases I’ve seen in quite sometime, which makes it all the more disappointing that a lot of the issues that have bogged down previous Christopher Nolan films still apply here. His biggest problem is that he doesn’t trust his audience. He feels the need to emphasize every point he’s making so even the mildly engaged toddlers in the audience understand what he’s getting at. In The Dark Knight, he made sure you wouldn’t forget that THE JOKER IS AN AGENT OF CHAOS. In The Dark Knight Rises, he bludgeon his heavy-handed symbolism into your brain, like the fact that SELENA KYLE REPRESENTS THE 99%. The messages of Interstellar are just as clear, and delivered with just as much unnecessary forcefulness.

            This lack of trust in his audience carries over into his need to explain everything. A lot of people have compared Interstellar to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. That may seem unfair, but, unlike last year’s Gravity, Interstellar at least strives to be as thought-provoking and daring as Kubrick’s masterwork. But, to put it bluntly, it fails. It’s been more than forty years since 2001 was released, and people are still discussing what Kubrick was getting. That film provides no easy answers, whereas Interstellar makes sure there’s and explanation for everything. There’s nothing left to the imagination. As a result, the most exciting parts of the film come in the first hour, when the possibilities seem limitless. Once Nolan starts to provide explanation, they are both disappointing and deflating.  

            It’s unsurprising that Steven Spielberg was originally attached to direct Interstellar, as it’s the first Nolan film that could accurately be categorized as a tear-jerker. Unfortunately, the film also fails here. Nolan has never been good dealing with human emotions, so he usually relies on his cast to do all the heavy-lifting in that respect. Since he’s worked with some of the most talented actors in the world, this has paid off for the most part. Interstellar is the first film where directly tries to engage with human emotions, and the results only feel false and corny.

            I’ve been really critical here, but, despite all of these issues, Interstellar is still a film that demands to be seen. It wrestles with ideas most Hollywood films wouldn’t even go near, and it’s more ambitious than any blockbuster since God knows when. I just wish I liked it more.

Rating: 2.5/5

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

Nightcrawler, the directorial debut from Dan Gilroy, follows Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a street thief in search of a way to build a career for himself when he stumbles upon the world of video journalism, where “nightcrawlers” rush to record the scenes of crimes and accidents and then sell their footage to news stations. Bloom sees nightcrawling as the career path he’s been looking for and, after acquiring the necessary means (a camera and a radio scanner), he quickly begins to learn the ropes of this sleazy profession.

As you’d expect from a premise like this, Nightcrawler is a satire of news media, but its message is less sophisticated than the film seems to think and is delivered ham-fistedly. The film’s thesis can basically be boiled down to the old phrase “if it bleeds, it leads,” but it acts like this is a stunning revelation. Everything Nightcrawler has to say about news media has been said before, and more effectively, by other films, like Network.

While it may be basic and obvious as a satire, Nightcrawler is surprisingly effective as a character study, thanks in large part to the central performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom. He plays Bloom a ruthless opportunist and a salesman, always wearing an unnerving smile but clearly willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Bloom wants to start his own business, where he runs the show, and he speaks in language that seem lifted from the textbook in a business class. In another actor’s hands, Bloom’s dialogue could come across as heavy-handed, but Gyllenhaal sells it. The actor apparently lost 20 pounds for the role, and it shows in his gaunt face and bulging eyes, making Bloom seem eager and hungry for success. As he gets deeper into the nightcrawling business and his strategy develops from finding the bloodiest crime scene to fabricating his own, Bloom’s focus and drive never waver. He is completely ruthless and amoral, and Gyllenhaal plays it with a verve that recalls Robert De Niro’s work in The King of Comedy.

Whenever Nightcrawler focuses on the character of Lou Bloom, it’s a fascinating and unnerving character study, with a brilliant performance from Jake Gyllenhaal. Unfortunately, director Dan Gilroy seems committed to his tired and familiar satire of news media. There’s definitely a good film here; it’s just been combined with another, considerably less interesting one.

Rating: 2.5/5