"Interstellar" begins with a group of astronauts led by Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) traveling into a wormhole to search for a new, habitable planet that will stave off human extinction. Cooper's epic journey across the cosmos seemingly comes to an end when he detaches himself from his own ship and jumps through a supermassive black hole called Gargantua, which is right around the time that things get weird.
Cooper survives his journey beyond the event horizon and inexplicably finds himself inside an infinite "library" that allows him to look into the past. Specifically, this impossible structure is made up of memories from the bedroom of his daughter, Murph (Jessica Chastain/Mackenzie Foy). Guessing that this structure (as well as the wormhole from the beginning) was constructed by time-traveling humans from the future, Cooper transmits data from inside the black hole to Murph in the past, who uses the information to complete a gravity equation proposed by Professor John Brand (Michael Caine).
His mission complete, the future humans pull Cooper out of the wormhole and bring him to a space station where he is reunited with an elderly version of Murph (Ellen Burstyn), who reveals that she used his transmitted date to lead a mass exodus of earth and save humanity. As astounding as this ending may be, it's safe to say that Jonathan Nolan's original idea would've been much easier to grasp –- and much sadder to boot.
