The almost three-hour Interstellar sci-fi film has its ups and downs -- literally. Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan co-wrote the screenplay which combines a family drama, past culture, future dreams and schemes plus enough scientific unexplained dialogue and expectations to put a college science class to sleep.

The story begins as Cooper, “Coop” (Matthew McConaughey) becomes worried about the crops his family and neighbors are seeing die due to continued dust clouds, much like the Dust Bowl in the Great Plains region that devastated crops in 1930s depression-ridden America. Many people are packing up and leaving, but Coop’s father-in-law (John Lithgow) thinks they can hold out, especially when Coop gets offered a very important job.

Once a pilot for NASA, Coop is now wanted for a new position by Professor Brand (Michael Caine), commander of an underground nasa outpost. This job will require him to be away from his family for many years. Because Coop has two children he’s raising without their mother, that’s a big decision for him -- especially since his young daughter Murphy aka “Murph (Mackenzie Foy), who devours every bit of her father’s knowledge about space, is behind in her school work. When Murph’s teacher tells Coop they have updated all the text books “with the truth that all the space trips to the moon were not real,” he thinks twice about sending his daughter back to school.

Driving through a massive facility, Brand shows Coop around and explains exactly what his trip would be about -- mainly finding another galaxy where those on earth can go to if Earth becomes no longer inhabitable. It also involves going through a wormhole and retrace the flights of three astronauts who were sent a decade earlier to investigate planets that might sustain human life. They never returned.

Coop feels Earth will not sustain its people much longer, so he agrees to the trip, leaving his son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murph devastated. According to Murph, their dad is leaving them “to die.” Brand’s daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) is going with Coop.

The cast does a fine job carrying out the heart of this survival-and-sacrifice story. McConaughey is excellent as Coop. He hits a high peak when they finally get a video connection to Earth only to find out his children are now grown. Murph (now played by Jessica Chastain) still holds a grudge against her father, and her harsh words bring about a heartfelt sadness to Coop. His son (now played by Casey Affleck) is married with children and also hardened to his father. Foy, first-rate as the young Murph, comes across as so adept that in a few years she may easily fill the shoes of movie characters like the ones played by Chastain.   

In one of the film’s trailers, Hathaway said she thought about what it would be like to leave everyone you love behind and live your life cutoff for the greater good. That notion moved her.  Hathaway’s Amelia is somewhat a chip off the old block, very absorbed with space and this mission, but she lacks her dad’s compassion and kind-heartedness (which Caine projects superbly in this role)

Melded into the story is the downer part of the film which caused many people leaving the screening I attended to scratch their heads. Yet almost everyone should find the visual effects  absolutely stunning. However, the length of the film and overkill of the wormhole scenes had me continually checking my watch.

Still, if you can get through or ignore all the talk about science of the future, nitrogen, oxygen, wormholes, space-time, galaxies, relativity, and singularity, you will probably enjoy the heartfelt father/daughter love story -- which ends up being the centerpiece of Interstellar.  

(Released by Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and Paramount Pictures;   rated "PG -13" for some intense perilous action and brief strong language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com.