Despite its exciting, expensive and thorough advertisement campaigns, Hollywood rarely breaks through the college bubble. Most students don’t seem terribly in touch with the film scene while on campus. But if you haven’t heard of Interstellar by now, then I have to assume you are some kind of hardcore survivalist mountain man, because this is the film on everyone’s mind and Facebook newsfeed.

Directed by Christopher Nolan with a star-studded cast, the film tells the story of distant future where, due to consumerism and over farming, the world and society are on the verge of collapse. Ex-NASA engineer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a crew of scientists embark on a deep space voyage in search of a new, habitable world. Of course, one plot summary is not enough to capture the various sub-plots and twists that spring from the film like tributaries off the mighty Mississippi.

With Nolan’s direction and music by Hans Zimmer, the film is aesthetically thrilling. The film captures deep space in a terrifyingly beautiful way. One cannot help but recognize the great vastness of the universe that Cooper and his crew watch from their spacecraft. Even the way that the film represented day-to-day life was exciting. It captured monstrous dust storms ravaging the agricultural hubs of the United States. Zimmer’s ominous chorus always accompanied these suspenceful moments and always left the viewer thoroughly titillated.

Despite this, the film left a strange taste in my mouth. Though Nolan’s direction is exhilarating, his writing is weak. The story spreads itself thin over a multitude of different conflicts and seems to sweep away plot holes through quick, confusing and questionable dialogue.

The characters seem just as weak. For example, Cooper’s whole motivation throughout the film is to return to his daughter. Upon his arrival, he learns that his daughter has now aged far beyond him. His reunion with her has a screen time of about four minutes and is cut short, it seems, so the film can introduce the possibility of a sequel. This resolution was anticlimactic at its very best.

Furthermore, Professor Brand, played by Anne Hatheway, is the only female scientist on Cooper’s ship. Despite her portrayal as a professional, empowered scientist, halfway through the film she abandons her scientific background and delivers a forgettable monologue about the unshakable power of love over the weak, observable science. Her monologue is followed by what can only be described as a semi-sassy temper tantrum before the whole scene is forgotten. As the strong female lead is crippled by emotion in a scene that proves to be unnecessary in the scope of the film, one cannot help but question Christopher Nolan’s view of women (and certainly his abilities as a writer!)

The most interesting part of this film is its grappling with with the philosophical truths. The film is mainly about time. As Cooper and his team enter different ravitational fields at different times, they all age at entirely different rates. This relativity are represented cinematically as well. Watching the film, one never truly grasps the time. Not only is a year never established, but the cuts into different times at some points seem confusing. This execution must be purposeful, aimed to comment on a bigger theme: what is time?

In the end, this film will go down with The Matrix and Inception as a science fiction work but also as a philosophical work. It mirrors these two films in the content it attempts to convey but also in its high-tech, CGI-based film style.

Though this film may have spread itself thin in all directions, it is a certainly a thrilling movie to watch. It’s not everyday that you watch a blockbuster film that entertains you and makes you think, too.