Zero Dark Murphy

Ok if you know me personally, you know that in the months following my viewing of the film Interstellar, I wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. I ranted, I raved, I did my very best to convince every human being I could to see it. I even wrote a review for the movie for my school newspaper, in which I essentially declared it the next modern American classic. So that happened. And because that happened, I will not be reviewing the movie again here, I am merely writing to outline for you two major theories I have regarding the film and its characters. Keep in mind that SPOILERS FOR INTERSTELLAR are to follow, so please, plan accordingly. If you haven't seen it and you care to at some point in the future, don't continue reading. As for the rest of you, here are my thoughts.

THE REAL HEROES

A lot of time has been spent debating whether or not Cooper (the film's main protagonist) actually loves his two children equally. Seeing as how Murphy, Cooper's daughter, was chosen by the fifth dimensional beings to finish the equation and save the world, the relationship between her and her father is definitely emphasized extensively. It is my belief, however, that the emphasis placed on this bond is in no way meant to suggest that Cooper loved his son, Tom, any less than he loved Murphy. Hear me out on this one.

Murphy and Tom are the two sides of Cooper's personality.

This becomes clear in the very first scenes of the film, where we learn that Tom aspires to be a farmer, like his father, at one point even telling his dad, "I like our farm. I like what you do." This aspect of Tom's personality is further developed as he grows up, eventually raising his family on the property, refusing to leave even when it is highly suggested that he do so.

Tom, having inherited his father's loyalty and protectiveness defends his family and does what he feels is best for them, but along with those positive qualities, Tom seems to also have inherited Cooper's more negative tendencies. At a point in the film, Cooper points out a major flaw with the outlook he and other farmers share when it comes to life and growing crops. "We farmers we say, 'next year'", Cooper states, referring to the farmer's response to repeated failure and the seemingly regular destruction of crops. As if it were not easy enough to infer that Tom shares this quality with his father, later in the film, and adult Tom describes his plan to Murphy when he is forced to torch his crops, starting with the words, "Next year..." before outlining what he INTENDS to do differently. It is this blind optimism that Cooper is criticizing in the film's first act, fully acknowledging that he is guilty of thinking that way, and his son, once grown up, is no different.

Murphy is the opposite side of that philosophical coin. From a young age she expresses a desire to explore, and investigate, sneaking into her father's car early in the film to help him track down a lead in his hunt for the cause of the gravity anomalies occurring on the farm. An older Murphy, after Cooper has left Earth on the Endurance, does actually leave the farm as soon as she is able, and starts working with Professor Brand, the physicist responsible for solving the problem of gravity and getting humankind off of Earth. Murphy is the scientist, the engineer, where Tom is the farmer, and the parent.

Murphy isn't without her flaws either, flaws she undoubtedly shares with her father. Murphy is impulsive and emotional, and in many ways selfish, where Tom is stoic and concerned more with the well being of his family than he is with himself. Murphy's desire to leave Earth, to discover something meaningful out in the universe, keeps her adaptable, and free, but also renders her painfully idealistic. Murphy's similarities to her father are only further highlighted when you realize that despite her outspoken resentment of Cooper, she wears his coat after his departure, and for the entirety of the film's final act.

Now here's the real kicker. The actual "theory", if you will.

BOTH Tom and Murphy are needed to save humanity.

Sure Murphy has to solve Brand's equation using the data relayed to her by her father, and yes she will receive the credit for doing so, but consider also how Tom's actions may have changed the course of the story.

If Murphy had things her way, there would be no more farm. She would have left the house and the crops and let the place burn and die like so many other farms before and after Cooper's departure. Tom's refusal to leave, Tom's devotion to his family and his unwillingness to let his father go (though he hides this unwillingness beyond a certain point) are what preserved that property. Had Tom not been around to keep things the way they always were, when it came time for Murphy to return to her room (which is left untouched) and finally come to the realization that her father has been her ghost all along, there would be no room to return to. The house would have been ransacked or demolished if not already sold away by a bitter Murphy, who repeatedly admits throughout the film that she wants nothing to do with the farm or her father. Not to mention her only reason for returning to the farm is actually to VISIT Tom, and it is this visit that leads to Murphy returning to her old bedroom and uncovering old secrets. She would never have returned had it not been for her brother.

Tom and Murphy are the two pieces of one ultimate key, and the combination of the two children (Cooper, the father) could arguably be considered the true savior, seeing as how he is the mortal given the power by the extra-dimensional beings to perceive time in a 3rd dimensional space.

Ok, that was a lot. Now, on to the next one.

THE FALL OF MANN

Dr. Mann's involvement in the final act of the film's story, and his ultimate motivation are both highly contested, even to this day, by those who still give a shit that is. And although I've heard a lot of great ideas tossed around in relation to the meaning behind his character, this is my condensed explanation of what he actually symbolizes, based solely on how I have interpreted the evidence provided by director Christopher Nolan.

Mann represents the truth we all look for in our constant search to find out where humanity is actually heading, and what we will look like when we get there. Throughout history, people have continually demonstrated a curiosity as to what humankind will be or appear to be at our peak. We are always looking to the future, with questions about ourselves, assuming that the beings we find there, in the future, will be vastly different from who we are in the present. Dr. Mann represents our peak as a race; as Dr. Amelia Brand puts it quite eloquently, he represents "the best of us."

Which is why it came as such a shock when this man that we all expected to be above average human urges and instincts turns out to be a coward, driven by his fear of death and his will to survive. Mann explains to Cooper in the moments before he attempts to kill him that human nature dictates that in the seconds before death the human mind will always push a little bit harder in order to survive. In defense of Professor Brand's lie (Amelia Brand's father told all those involved in the mission that they could save themselves and their loved ones) Mann also explains to the crew of the Endurance that humans are driven by selfish desires to protect themselves and those they care about. "...empathy rarely ever extends past that line of sight", he elaborates, stating that the only way to inspire cooperation on the mission would be to lie to the participants to convince them they were in some way servicing themselves or their families. This is best evidenced not just by Mann's actions, but by the actions of Cooper and Amelia as well.

Cooper and Amelia, and their respective motivations, actually serve to  prove Mann's point. Cooper is fighting for his children, and Amelia is fighting to reach Dr. Edmunds, a physicist she fell in love with who is stranded on a distant planet. Both Cooper and Amelia, though quick to judge Dr.Mann for his selfish acts, are actually prime examples of exactly what he's talking about, and this is even FURTHER evidenced by the fact that the only two members of the crew who were really participating solely for selfless reasons actually ended up dead. Both Doyle and Romilly, scientists joining Cooper and Amelia on their expedition, were only participating with the goal of saving others as opposed to themselves, and as a result, they both end up dead, failing to exemplify Mann's point about self-service and survival, and thus failing to survive. In dying the way they both do, Nolan actually represents to us visually the cost of bypassing our own senses of self-preservation.

The silver lining in all this is the fact that in the end, Cooper actually does overcome and TRANSCEND what Mann describes as a truth that humans cannot escape. Despite his desire to see his kids, and despite his desire to save himself, Cooper opts to eject from the Endurance as it passes over a black hole in order to give Amelia a chance at surviving AND seeing Edmunds. By making a sacrifice that he expected would mean the end of his life, Cooper proved Mann wrong, and in moving past his instincts and wants, was elevated to a higher plane of existence by fifth dimensional beings. Beings believed to be evolved past the point of being human, and in the moment Cooper manages to perform a truly selfless act and save another person, out of love, he is shown something no human before him had ever seen, and he is seated at the center of a power that Dr. Mann couldn't have ever dreamed of experiencing. Because Dr. Mann's fears prohibited him from ever doing so.

It's hard to sum up my thoughts on both of these points in words, but the fact that I can say that watching this film inspired every word that you just read speaks volumes as to the significance Interstellar truly has as a piece of art and a piece of history. I've always maintained that we have the movie to thank for the discussion  it inspired, whether you loved it or hated it. We all had something to say when this movie came out, and here I am over a year later, still with more words than I can really put to paper.

Thanks for reading, stay classy my friends.