The Finest Hours

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Craig Gillespie/Starring: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Eric Bana, Ben Foster and Holliday Grainger

Based on the book: The Finest Hours: The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue, director Craig Gillespie's film tells the story of a T-2 oil tanker that literally split in half during a particularly savage sea storm in the Atlantic, which prompted a harrowing sea rescue. Braving terrifying, towering waves, the Coast Guard's rescue operation stands as one of the more amazing feats in American maritime history.

Having stated that, one might expect a movie depicting something so mind-boggling to be sufficiently nail-biting. Unfortunately, Gillespie's film falls well short of translating the story's more harrowing aspects. We're left instead with a technically accomplished action flick that would have been better off being projected from a plasma display than a movie projector. What was most likely a life-altering experience for all involved plays like a pedestrian sea disaster on-screen. One might find the story interesting and the visual effects impressive but if you're like me, you might also become drowsy; even during some of the film's climactic sequences.

The events depicted in the film took place off the coast of Massachusetts, early 1950s'. During said snow storm, the aforementioned tanker encountered violent, colossal waves. The tanker crew, led by Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck), watch nervously as the welded seam of the hull threatens to crack with the ship's every crashing descent from the mighty waves. When the seams does give, a powerful blast of water penetrates the interior, knocking crew-members against the bulkhead. Unthinkably worse, the ship actually splits in two which one crew-member discovers to his horror. While one half the ship sinks beneath the angry waves, Sybert and the remaining crew struggle to keep their half afloat. While the ship threatens to drift, sink or capsize, Sybert realizes their only hope is to steer what remains of the vessel onto a shoal, thus stabilizing it until help arrives.
Meanwhile, a Coast Guard crewman named Bernie Webber (Chris Pine) undertakes a dangerous and ill-advised mission to rescue the survivors of the tanker crew; well aware of the mission's slim chances for success. He and his small crew are nevertheless brave, knowing their small, Coast Guard boat must negotiate the roiling sea. Adding a wrinkle to Bernie's efforts is his fiancee Miriam (Holliday Grainger), who waits anxiously for him to return.

The story draws a parallel between the two crew chiefs as both Sybert and Bernie are burdened by the need to prove themselves as able leaders and earn their respective crews respect.
In an attempt to make the film more female friendly, the action is frequently interrupted to show us Miriam's anguish, as she clings desperately to the hope of her fiance's return.

The action is divided evenly between Sybert's attempt to ground the ship and Bernie's crazy brave effort to find the survivors, which seems hopeless in the unforgiving tempest.

Both narrative threads provide some minor thrills--accent on minor. The visual effects are effective enough to give a landlubber like myself an idea of what violent sea really means but the action didn't make me squirm. One might say; hey, cool CGI, but shouldn't this be more exciting? Knowing the story is based on fact was a sure tell that all would work out for everyone, which robbed the film of tension crucial to the narrative.

As mentioned earlier, I couldn't help but think the movie might be an okay late night, channel surfing stop but on a movie screen, it just seems several sizes too big.
The characters also fail to register as real people; they're more realized personality types. Eric Bana, Affleck and Pine aren't given much to interpret, character-wise. The same can be said for British actress Holliday Grainger; whose performance consists almost solely of teary-eyed stares into the oceanic horizon. Her character is really the producer's carrot to lure women into theater seats.

Craig Gillespie has done better work; the odd Lars and the Real Girl and the light and whimsical The Million Dollar Arm demonstrate his quirkier, more humorous trademark style. This film seems all wrong for him. This stuff is the domain of a seasoned hack like Michael Bay.

The men who lived through the horrific ordeal were undeniably at their finest. If only the filmmakers could claim the same. A better title for the film might have been; A Passable Two Hours.

Interstellar

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Christopher Nolan/Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck, Mackenzie Foy, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Wes Bentley, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, Topher Grace, David Gyasi and William Devane

I've wondered for some time if Christopher Nolan might someday join the ranks of cinema's directorial best. I've always thought he was ferociously talented and his style distinctive and singular. After seeing his new film Interstellar, which he penned with his brother Jonathan, I can finally say, with forceful emphasis--yes; he is on his way to entering the Pantheon. I found his new film to be monumental, highly intelligent, moving, visionary and riveting.

When one considers the film in retrospect, it seems incredible that a movie that begins on a country farm surrounded by cornfields could carry us to another galaxy, through a black hole and conclude in a space station in orbit around Saturn. But as the staggering stretches of time and space leave us breathless and our minds expanded, it's the mysteries of humanity that ultimately make Nolan's film an emotionally-rich experience.

The film's pervasive, melancholy tone begins in the opening scenes, where we see a less-habitable Earth of the near future. Though what specifically ails the planet is never overtly stated, we can see from the dust storms that smother and lash a small farming community that things aren't good. We learn that most crops have suffered some sort of mysterious blight, while only corn withstands the blankets of dust that besiege the small town residents.

In this community lives Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), his daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy), his son Tom (Timothee Chalamet) and his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow). Cooper, a former pilot and engineer who now farms to survive, never had the opportunity to parlay his piloting skills into a space mission.

As he and his family endure the ominous environmental plagues, Cooper must also contend with his kid's school teachers, who believe Tom will never be qualified to be anything but a farmer, and look askance at Murph's fascination with NASA's Apollo programs. Her teacher bears a bewildering skepticism and contempt for space travel; going so far as to call the moon landing a fraud perpetrated by the U.S. government.

Strange, ghost-like occurrences begin to take place in Murph's bedroom; phenomena she attributes to the supernatural, which Cooper's rational mind interprets scientifically. Because Murph shares her father's analytical prowess, she believes the manifestation is a coded message in Morse, which offer longitude and latitudinal coordinates to a place not far from their home. When Cooper and his daughter investigate the location, they find a secret government NORAD site and when shown inside, they discover the place is actually a NASA base where a secret project involving space travel is being undertaken.

Leading this project is a brilliant scientist named Professor Brand (Michael Caine), who learns Cooper's piloting skills would be ideal for the mission he is overseeing. The professor explains to Cooper that the Earth's atmosphere is changing molecularly; becoming more nitrogen rich, which will soon make it difficult for humans to breathe and survive. The professor's project, already in advanced stages, involves finding planets suitable for human colonization. When Cooper mentions, quite reasonably, that the planets in our solar system can't support life, the doctor tells him of a worm-hole discovered near Saturn; one most likely placed by an alien race that anticipated mankind's need to abandon the Earth. The worm-hole allows travelers passage between our galaxy and another and on the other side are several planets which are candidates for colonization. These planets happen to be circling a massive black hole--at a safe distance--called Gargantua. It is also explained that several scientists have already traveled to said planets and are exploring them, though their fates remain unknown. Professor Brand offers Cooper the opportunity to travel to the planets, via the worm hole, to follow-up on the erstwhile expedition's progress.

Though eager to pilot a spaceship and satisfy his hunger to travel in space, the trip leaves Murph afraid and angry; knowing she may never see her father again. And when Cooper comes to say goodbye to his daughter, she refuses to see him. While she bars the door, books fall from her bookshelf, further confirming the existence of some sort of poltergeist, though what it actually is becomes clear later in the film.

As the mission to Saturn begins, Cooper is joined by Professor Brand's daughter Brand (Anne Hathaway), Doyle (Wes Bentley), and Romilly (David Gyasi). After their ship breaks Earth's gravitational pull, the crew enters cryogenic freeze for the long voyage. On awakening near Saturn, the crew prepares to enter the worm-hole and when they successfully navigate their way through, they find the black hole and the planets the professor described.

The shot of the Earth from space and the rings of Saturn are lovely and breathtaking. It is particularly humbling to see a massive spaceship reduced to the size of a penny next to Saturn's massive majesty. It is also fascinating that the worm-hole is presented more as a sphere rather than the traditional hole-like, sci-fi conceptions we're accustomed to seeing. Hovering like a ticking clock over these wondrous visuals is the mission's pressing objectives and the imperiled human race back on Earth. Nolan keeps the scientific intricacies of space travel and Einsteinian time-dilation reasonably accessible without drowning the audience in technical jargon.

As Cooper, Brand and the crew visit the prospective planets, they encounter some surprises, some life-threatening setbacks and one of time-dilation's mind-boggling peculiarities (time-dilation dictates that time will slow significantly for those who travel at or near the speed of light while it proceeds normally for observers. If one were to visit a distant star at light speed and return to Earth, the traveler will have hardly aged at all while hundreds or thousands of years may have passed for those on Earth). Because the planets circle a black hole, the more bizarre effects of time-dilation wreak havoc with the crew.

And because of time-dilation, Murph has aged into normally into adulthood (now represented by Jessica Chastain) while her father has more or less remained the age he was when he left Earth. Her transmissions to the Cooper's ship leave him floored when he sees the sobering sight of his aged daughter; who, in relativistic terms, is hardly younger than he.

Back on Earth, Murph has matured into an accomplished scientist who has joined Professor Brand's project and in doing so, she learns (as Cooper and crew discover separately) the mission through the wormhole was a one-way trip, which dashes her hope of ever seeing her father again. The realization has a devastating impact on her and on Cooper alike.

A tragic turn of events on one of the planets threatens the mission, which leads to some life-altering decisions for Cooper and Brand, one of which forces him into the black hole; a phenomenal sequence where travel inside a black hole is beautifully imagined; a trip that ends where one might least expect.

A film like Nolan's only works if the sterile, coldness of space can be countered by a powerful human drama, and it is. The relationship between Cooper and Murph is the dynamic that really drives the film. The desire to see Cooper keep his promise to return to his daughter is powerful, though the unimaginable distance and time between them makes that prospect seem unlikely.

Matthew McConaughey may have given the performance of his career in Interstellar. It's hard to imagine how improbable this role seems when just a decade ago his career was mired in witless, romantic comedies with Kate Hudson. That phase in his career seems as far removed from the present as the black hole is from Earth.

Hoyte Van Hoytema, the cinematographer behind Her and Let the Right One In, has a rich palette from which to work as he captures the dusty brown of a farming town, the cold grays of a icy planet and the lovely, ringed face of Saturn; real and imagined environments he records with an artist's eye.

If the film has a flaw, it might be the later scenes on Earth, which seem to pull us reluctantly away from the unbelievable drama taking place a galaxy away. The scenes of an adult Murph combating her brother to make contact with her father is necessary to the story but it can't match the scenes in space for power or wonder. And of course one could be nit-picky about the science in the film. I doubt anyone in a spacesuit would survive entry into a black hole but why should we be forced to think literally to appreciate the Nolan's imaginative story?

I think Interstellar is a masterpiece; a term I very rarely apply to any film, even great ones. It challenges our intellect and our conceptions of reality while showing us how precious a sight a human face might be when it lies beyond interstellar and intergalactic reaches, and what happens when time dilation allows a young father to visit his elderly daughter on her deathbed. And it asks us to consider the notion that our species may not me meant to occupy this celestial ball forever. Nolan asks us to consider a lot, which is what makes his film a stunning achievement.