Oppenheimer review

 

The greatest thing about the movies, for me, is the feeling of awe I get when I'm forced to reckon with a truly great film. A film that challenges, spellbinds, confounds, and overwhelms me. A film that doesn't leave my mind hours after watching it and makes me speechless. No other art-form does that for me, especially now that I'm in my mid-30s. As you get older, you can feel jaded. Great cinema makes me feel like a kid again. There's nothing like it. and too often I forget just how powerful a film can be for me until one day, I sit down at the cinema and it happens all over again: pure joy. I can't find that kind of joy anywhere else. Being a husband and father? Sure, there's a lot of joy in that, but I find that fatherhood is more rewarding, the more I put into it. I have to work to find joy. With cinema, it almost feels like stealing. I'm just sitting in my seat watching a collective of dozens of artists making something special. Yeah, I spent money for that experience, but you don't always get that kind of experience with every movie. It doesn't happen every time. That's why, when it does happen, it really does bowl me over. "Oh yeah, I love movies!" I say to myself. Sometimes it's nice to get that kind of reminder every once in awhile.

With Oppenheimer, what writer/director Christopher Nolan pulled off is nothing short of a miracle. Think about what it is for a second. It's a 3-hour biopic! We've had biopics on famous scientists before (remember Theory of Everything? Imitation Game?), but none felt as BIG as this movie did. Somehow Nolan took Oppenheimer's life and work during the Manhattan Project and turned it into a major summer blockbuster. And while it does have a big, "bomb"-bastic sequence with the Trinity bomb test, a large majority of the film is just people in rooms talking. And yet, the frenetic pacing, the intensity of the soundtrack, the intricate sound design in general, the switch between black-and-white and color, and the incredible performances from a cast that's really an embarrassment of riches --- it all helped to amplify what was happening on screen. Every moment felt vital and I was hooked from the jump.

Oppenheimer is framed around two events: the interrogation of Oppenheimer in 1954 by the FBI and a Senate confirmation hearing for the Secretary of Commerce. From there, we dive into two separate timelines: 1) Oppenheimer's rise through the ranks, going from student to professor to director of the Manhattan Project 2) Oppenheimer's relationship and history with Lewis Strauss, the man who was appointed by Eisenhower to become Secretary of Commerce. The first timeline is in color; the second one is in black and white. Eventually these timelines collide and we come to find out how they link with each other.

I don't want to get much deeper into plot details. But what I will say is, when you read the above paragraph, it doesn't exactly sound all THAT "thrilling," right? In lesser hands, this movie would be "just another biopic" (remember Theory of Everything? Imitation Game?) and yet, it's filled to the brim with energy and is pure cinema from start to finish. Nolan uses all the cinematic tools at his disposal to make a truly immersive experience. By the end, I didn't even know what to say. Hell, I barely know what to say right now. I'm still in awe of what I just saw. Lately, I've been up and down on Nolan. I loved all his work in the 2000s all the way to Inception. After that? Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar were... decent. Dunkirk was amazing. Tenet was... ok. So here we are with Oppenheimer and... holy fucking shit! I've always been in the camp of referring to Memento as his best film, even after all the major blockbusters he's made since, there's something so original and clever about that movie. Well, he just may have topped it. 

Cillian Murphy's performance as Oppenheimer had the perfect light touch. It wasn't bombastic, he wasn't loud, yet he still carried gravitas. You could believe this man was a great theoretical physicist AND a celebrity. Moreover, Murphy nailed the constant inner conflict this man must've felt knowing his impact on the world. Basically, Oppenheimer is a very layered, complicated character and Murphy nailed all the nuances a performance like that needs. 

Robert Downey Jr. definitely got the "showier" performance playing Lewis Strauss. Man, I've heard some complain about the final hour and I'm completely confused as to how anyone could not be blown away but what is basically the Robert Downey Jr. show during the final act. We finally got to see RDJ really sink his teeth into a role that isn't Iron Man. How long has it been since he played someone this smarmy? A guy who makes you wanna punch him in the face? And when it's found out the kind of man Strauss really was, Downey Jr. leans into it and it's so very satisfying. 

I could spend all day talking about other performances, whether it's Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, or what about Florence Pugh? What about Benny Safdie?? Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves? The cast list just goes on. To me, Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan's JFK. It's an obsessive look at a period of history with an editing style that's sometimes disorienting. But also, JFK had pretty much every important actor from 1991 appear in that movie. Oppenheimer is like that too. Just a ridiculous cast, which Nolan uses as a secret weapon. The constant surprise appearances from various famous actors kept me guessing and it was like a trick. Oh, Rami Malek is in the background of this scene? Oh, that character must be important, I'm gonna remember his face. Then you have an actor like Josh Hartnett show up and it's like, shit, when's the last time I've even seen Hartnett? And he gets to have a meaty role in this movie? Especially in light of the SAG-AFTRA strike, there's something gratifying seeing all these actors bring their A-game to this movie. 

I wish I could dig deeper into the cinematography and editing, but I was so immersed with the story and characters that it's going to require a second viewing to get into all that. I'll just leave you with some thoughts about what I feel the movie means thematically. Nolan has been pretty upfront about how he views the main character and the movie, in general, that this is meant to be a cautionary tale. I definitely got that impression, walking away from the movie. Oppenheimer was a very complicated man. That Time magazine cover hailing him as "the father of the atomic bomb"... yeesh. Knowing the sheer amount of damage and destruction that bomb did to two cities in Japan, that's not exactly a title one could be proud of, and yet that bomb was a culmination of a life's work. Everything that Oppenheimer was building towards in his career lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The interrogations that followed from the FBI and Oppenheimer's unwillingness to really fight back the charges that were levied against him (despite his wife pleading for him to grow a pair), it speaks to the guilt he was experiencing and the martyrdom he felt necessary to indulge in.

All the renown scientists portrayed in the movie, whether it's the title character, Einstein, Niels Bohr, etc... it's crazy to think they spent their whole lives knee-deep in "theory". Oppenheimer, to me, shows the dangers of what could happen when theory can be put into practice. When great minds can be used as weapons. How the H-bomb could be concocted in a room full of scientists spouting theories back and forth. It's exhilarating to see these great minds at the top of their game in the moment, but then we soon see what can happen when these scientific achievements can get to the wrong hands.

There's a naïveté about Oppenheimer that's heart-breaking. Throughout the movie he talks about how he feels the creation of the atom bomb could be the key to ending all wars, yet we know that its creation and use would, instead, set the stage for a decades-long Cold War between the US and the Soviets. Threats of nuclear holocaust would dominate people's lives for several decades to follow. To think, all that started in those rooms in that makeshift city of Los Alamos, New Mexico.

And again, I'm not quite sure how Nolan did it. I'm not sure how he was able to take all this material and make it feel like a summer blockbuster despite there being no action set-pieces or CGI. This movie has more in common with A Few Good Men than The Avengers, but I think it's good to have a reminder that you don't need explosions to make a blockbuster movie. A great script, a collection of great actors, and a director using a wide array of cinematic tools---that's really all you need. Oppenheimer was worried about a chain reaction that could happen if an atomic bomb was detonated ---- could it destroy the world? Well what about the atomic bomb that is this movie? Could it set a chain reaction of more great big budget films to follow? We can only hope.