Absolutely, “Interstellar” Is a (r)eligious Movie

And that’s across all its dimensions.

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.

(Some unavoidable spoilers within.)

This is an inescapably (r)eligious film.

More than most movies I’ve seen this year.

Today, Megan Garber at The Atlantic said as much in a piece I strongly commend to you, perfectly nailing the distinction I wrote about two weeks ago:

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, …