Oppenheimer (2023): now I am become Nolan, savior of cinema

★★★★★

The world of today's entertainment is an increasingly grim one: studios intent on AI usage deny storytellers proper resources, audiences are so focused on entertainment as escapism that there is a demand for media that requires no critical thought, and half-baked vanity projects are churned out simply due to the level of celebrity status backing them.

It would be enough to make an aspiring screenwriter such as myself look to new career paths entirely— were it not for movies like Oppenheimer.

I sat down for my screening with absolutely no idea what to expect. I knew the name Oppenheimer and some fuzzy details surrounding the Manhattan Project, but the intimidating scale of the project coupled with the frenzy of Barbenheimer memes I'd witnessed this week were enough to push any preconceived notions from my mind other than one: that it would be brilliant.

What an understatement.

Beauty and horror. Love, life and death. Creation and destruction. In a masterful subversion of the routine biopic structure, Oppenheimer tears through the storied physicist's life at breakneck speed, with a subtle yet incredibly powerful Cillian Murphy at the helm. Two stories run parallel to each other throughout: the recounting of Oppenheimer's life to a counsel looking to revoke his national security clearance, and Lewis Strauss' hearing to be confirmed as a member of the presidential cabinet, played with power and poise by Robert Downey Jr. (I would like to thank Marvel personally for killing Iron Man so that RDJ can shine in good films once again).

What Works:

If you're anything like me, the decision to sit down for a three hour movie surrounding the subject you were the worst at in high school is a daunting one. My first worry with Oppenheimer was that I would be too out of my depth on the subject matter to fully understand, and therefore enjoy, the film in its entirety— not so, because Oppenheimer is, at its core, a movie about a man grappling with an absolutely horrifying thing. Rather than letting the science drive the story, Nolan lets the story drive the science— as an audience we may not understand the thousands of calculations required to build the atomic bomb, but thanks to grounded writing and emotional performances, we understand the stakes immediately. Nolan doesn't fall into the typical biopic trap of becoming bogged down in the exposition, rather he introduces us to a human being and what he cares about, and we move forward from there.

In fact, Nolan treats this movie like the physics it centers on. From his studies across Europe, Oppenheimer brought to America a science that hadn't even been conceived of there, one that is constantly twisting, doubling back on itself, revealing things once thought to be impossible. Cinematographically, Nolan utilizes scenes in both black and white and color to tell the story of the objective truths of the situation vs. Oppenheimer's point of view, respectively. Throughout the film we watch as Oppenheimer's point of view paints him in the light of a tortured genius whose brilliance was exploited to cause destruction, all to come crashing down in Strauss' final monologue in which he condemns Oppenheimer, a political and idealogical rival at this point, Nolan, primarily in the beginning of the film as we travel with Oppenheimer on his academic journey through Europe, also employs the use of mind-bending graphic sequences: particles and waves ebbing, flowing, careening through his mind, a glimpse into the possibilities he saw in the ordinary world. As they portray physics in its true state, the ever-shifting opinion of Oppenheimer portrays physics in the metaphorical.

In a movie so packed with star power, it feels wrong to single any one performance out. Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt stun as Jean Tatlock and Kitty Oppenheimer, daring communist and old flame and long-suffering wife, respectively. Matt Damon delivers a starkly contrasting and powerful performance as General Leslie Groves, gruff military overseer of the Manhattan Project. Benny Safdie plays ambitious and combative Manhattan Project member Edward Teller, a man itching to begin work on the hydrogen bomb. All that being said, the standout of this film next to the brilliant Cillian Murphy, is Robert Downey Jr. The primary force behind Oppenheimer's black and white sequences, Downey's turn as Lewis Strauss, Atomic Energy Commission member and chairman, was a complex, villainous performance we haven't had the privilege of seeing from him since the pre-Iron Man days.

What Doesn't:

As can be expected, Oppenheimer is a finely tuned watch. While I'm not the person to speak on historical inaccuracies, and I'm sure there are more than a few, I can speak to when a film checks every box. Anyone reading this who knows me personally will be stunned to know that the three hour run time doesn't even notch down this movie to me (I often mourn the death of the "tight ninety" run time, the last victim Sony's Across The Spider-Verse), the length of the film mirrors the scope of the Manhattan Project itself, there were no parts worth cutting from this story.

Oppenheimer is a film worth several viewings, as the information flung from every direction can become dizzying and overwhelming on a first watch, but even this I don't view as a downside— this is not a movie that you watch again because you missed something, it's something you watch again because you know it has more to reveal to you.

Final Thoughts:

What I think may be the most brilliant element of Oppenheimer was that it did not pick a side for its audience. It shows us harrowing visions and hallucinations of the destruction wreaked in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well the very real threat that led to the creation of the atom bomb, and the truly genius mind behind it.

Though Oppenheimer tells a story from our country's collective past, that core is far reaching— the idea that nothing will ever be as clear as we want it to be. Was Oppenheimer a vainglorious, narcissistic monster, or a man of morals, who just happened to be the only man who could do what our politicians believed needed to be done?

My actual first thought when I left that theater though? Cillian Murphy is winning that Oscar. No one else should even try.