"For the Washington Posts Ann Hornaday, the film didn't quite come together. She said that "there are moments of genuine awe and majesty in 'Interstellar,' but there are just as many passages that play as if Nolan is less interested in value for the viewers than proving a point, whether about the arcana of quantum physics, his technical prowess or the enduring power of love." McConaughey makes for "a compelling, even believable hero," she continued, but "too often, the father-daughter dynamics that propel 'Interstellar' ... feel shrewdly calculated, the emotionalism ginned up to a hysterically maudlin pitch." Ultimately, the film "tries so hard to be so many things that it winds up shrinking into itself, much like one of the collapsed stars [McConaughey's character] hurtles past on his way to new worlds.""