Movie Review: Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is a biopic as only Christopher Nolan could make. It features a plot with multiple timelines and multiple perspectives. It is filmed on a scale that no other director is capable of working on. It is a technical marvel and features possibly the best ensemble cast in 2023. It is a towering achievement and one of the best movies of the year.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) was one of the most brilliant minds America has ever seen and was the man in charge of the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. The film looks at Oppenheimer’s time studying in Europe and starting the legendary physics program at the University of California Berkeley, to the creation of the atomic bomb in Los Almos, New Mexico, to the years following the bombs and what it meant for Oppenheimer’s reputation as a scientist and the struggles he faced internally and from the government. Nolan shows us this through three different timelines. One is of a security hearing between Oppenheimer and several members of the government trying to remove his security access. Another is of a cabinet hearing for Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), who is being questioned about his complicated relationship with Oppenheimer. The third is the flashbacks to the stories they are telling. Oppenheimer’s interrogation and all the stories he tells are in color and Strauss’s hearing and all of his stories are in black and white. Nolan has referenced that Oppenheimer’s tellings are objective and Strauss’s are subjective. The different color format is a brilliant, simple decision by Nolan to separate the two stories.
Like other great biopics of the 2000s like Ali, The Aviator, and Lincoln, Oppenheimer focuses on only a small part of Oppenheimer’s life rather than showing us Oppenheimer from childhood all the way to his death. Oppenheimer focuses on roughly thirty years of the scientist’s life and Nolan is able to show us a man driven by curiosity and wonder about the future but tormented by the repercussions of his actions.
Nolan paints a portrait of a man of two minds who lacked conviction. Oppenheimer was an open-minded person and was always thinking about the future. As a young man, he was interested in the politics of Communism and how it could help the United States. He listened to their ideas, and became friends with them, even his first wife, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), was a key member of the Communist Party. But even though he knew just associating with the Communist Party could get him in hot water, Oppenheimer still mingled with them but never joined them.
When it was discovered that the creation of the atomic bomb was possible, Oppenheimer’s first immediate thought was to make a bomb. He got the world’s best scientists and brought them all to an isolated town in the middle of nowhere to create it. Initial calculations showed that once the bomb went off, it would cause an unstoppable chain reaction that could destroy the entire planet. Even when recalculated, there was still the slightest chance of complete global destruction. And yet, he went through with it and helped the United States win World War II. And then following the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer became an advocate against the creation of further nuclear weapons, preaching about the threat it would bring to the world, which did not sit right with the government, thus causing his security hearing.
Even in his personal life, Oppenheimer was never committed. He cheated on Tatlock with his second wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), but would still go back and meet with Tatlock whenever she called. It is fascinating watching a man do things he knows may cause harm or destruction to him and the people around him but still go through with them. This is an in-depth look at the flaws, torment, and sacrifice of a curious genius, themes Nolan has tackled before in previous films.
Nolan’s screenplay is the best of his career. Reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network (one of the great screenplays of this century), the film masterfully cuts between the storylines to construct Oppenheimer’s story. It is Nolan’s most dialog-forward film and the words crackle. The most exciting scenes in the movie take place between two men exchanging barbs and facts towards one another while Ludwig Göransson’s masterful score swells over the film.
The screenplay comes to life through the best ensemble cast of Nolan’s career. Murphy’s chilling, methodical performance of a man haunted by his desires and actions, and features a stacked supporting cast of Oscar winners, character actors, and Nolan regulars, all of whom do great work whether they have two lines or twenty. I was most impressed by Downey Jr., who gives one of the best performances of the year and his career.
While not a lot of action we would typically see in a Nolan film (don’t worry, the film is FAR from boring), the bomb test sequence is one of the best scenes in Nolan’s filmography. Brutally tense, masterfully edited and shot, and finishes off with one of the loudest in-theater moments I’ve ever been a part of, it is a stunning achievement from one of our modern masters.
I’ve seen Oppenheimer twice as of this writing. My second screening was a general public screening at my local AMC. When the credits began to roll, the film got a round of applause from the audience, a rarity in public screenings but a justified one because Oppenheimer is a stunning achievement. It is a complex, detailed look at a complicated man with a masterful screenplay and filmmaking at its highest form. Oppenheimer is one of the best movies of 2023, maybe the very best.
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