Alright, alright, so I chose to watch Barbie over Oppenheimer first, but in no way should that be misconstrued as a comment that I don’t think Oppenheimer will be the bomb-diggity. I just assumed there’d be a greater spoiler potential to come out of Barbie, so I wanted to get ahead of the wave, and I think I was right. Yes, Christopher Nolan is the current King of cinema, and now that the mind-bending sci-fi adventure of Tenet is behind us, it’s time for a depiction of true science, with the unrivaled horror of the atomic event in toe. I’m hoping Oppenheimer tells a meaty biography for Dr. J Robert Oppenheimer, with Nolan’s honed sensitivities serving to heighten the tension.
An out-of-the-box thinker, Dr. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is sought out by the U.S. government to act as head of a secretive physics project that will result in the world’s first atomic bomb. Brought about by an arms race against Nazi Germany, and later on with Russia, Oppenheimer has to navigate a covert operation with political interference, combined by the true limits of what is naturally possible and coming to terms with their deathly consequences. Duly, the middle third of Oppenheimer works like a mission movie, such like Ocean’s Eight or Argo, sandwiched between a wordy replay of often complicated political machinations, much like The Trial of the Chicago 7, or Good Night, and Goodluck.
Quite briefly, Oppenheimer is amazing, but for the first twenty minutes or so, I was having my doubts. “Oh no, don’t make me be the one to report that Oppenheimer is dull, and boring”, I thought, “don’t do this to me.” I felt the movie tediously scrambles to introduce a lot of faces early on, which I now suppose is unavoidable groundwork so that the story can hit its thrusts later, and although we trace quickly through Oppenheimer’s early life, I wasn’t getting a sense of how or why he was particularly brilliant. I also thought some of the early dialogue was casual – the Sanskrit reading, convenient, because Oppenheimer just happens to read the line, “I am become death, destroyer of worlds”; a line that I, at least, already knew was heavily associated with Oppenheimer, so perhaps that’s more a me-problem. But, a few hours later, by the time Jason Clarke’s cross-examiner is ramping up in an unbelievable back-and-forth with Oppenheimer, I couldn’t believe I had ever considered the dialogue casual. One thing that is evident right away is how deep the cast bats, where even a noted talent like Rami Malik probably gets a total minute of screentime, across two scenes where he only speaks for one. I suppose actors jump at a chance just to be associated with Nolan, and this movie could be a shot in the arm for many of these scaling talents. I was actually most impressed by Josh Hartnett, with a reserved sophistication that reminded me of Val Kilmer, although that also could’ve had something to do with his character’s haircut 😂 Benny Safdie is fantastic as the equally brilliant scientist Edward Teller, who wants to go down a different path with the H-bomb. I wasn’t sure why the movie needed someone like Matt Damon to play a gruff domineering general, until you realise, he must have a personable empathetic side to him as well, and Damon is a fantastic pick. David Krumholtz has come a long way since Wednesday scared the pants off him in Addams Family Values 😂 And Florence Pugh only appears briefly in early scenes for what seems to be just to get her titties out (and thank-you Chris Nolan for that) but then she comes back for a remarkably ballsy nude scene in front of the Atomic Energy committee, and I’ve never seen anything like it – I take it you’d need a brave and talented actress to get the most out her role, which ultimately speaks to why Pugh is there. I thought Emily Blunt was damn impressive with her work in Oppenheimer; she and Cillian Murphy end up acting out a very strong and complicated relationship, and while I’m not completely across Blunt’s entire catalogue, this performance has a favourable sharper edge compared to what I can remember of her recently, even since The Devil Wears Prada. And then, there’s Murphy himself – he always had early star power, with those dazzling blue eyes, in Red Eye and 28 Days Later, and he’s a Nolan favourite; but I never knew he held so much gravitas. Admittedly, I haven’t seen Peaky Blinders, but this is a big role to fill, and he’s completely up the challenge, deserving of all the praise I hope he gets.
Robert Downey Jr. keeps this movie afloat, in my book, whilst the movie is still setting up, and he’s as alluring as always too. Like what is most common among Nolan productions, the movie is score-heavy, and alongside Oppenheimer’s editing (done by Jennifer Lame), composer Ludwig Göransson is almost as equally commendable for creating Oppenheimer’s ever-building mood and intensity. The story sort’ve inlays ironies, framing thematically what to look for up ahead – one of the scientists postulates that the military will need these physicists until they don’t, and what leverage they ignore now will become ammunition for later. The movie also makes a point of how blind Oppenheimer can be to a bigger picture, even for such a perceptive man, which lays us in wait for the enormity of the atomic result, and political quagmire, to catch up to him. The movie’s events are basically, literally, the definition of Dr. Ian Malcolm’s Jurassic Park speech, about scientists so preoccupied with whether or not they can, they don’t stop to think if they should 😮 And maybe, Jurassic Park has always had an undertone in referencing the atomic explosion, but went about it by talking about dinosaurs – I’ve never come across that discussion, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I think I saw a quote from Nolan stating Oppenheimer is as much a horror movie as anything else, and that’s one solid interpretation to be made – like another Florence Pugh movie in Midsommar, where a well-inferred unspoken current of emotional unease exists for the audience, counteracting the undulating congratulations and accomplishments occurring on screen. I remember I had a pit in my stomach in the war room scene, where the officials are narrowing down a course of action, and which cities to target, and it carries along for minutes after the successful Los Alamos testing. Then, if it isn’t already clear to most, the movie doubles down with a second happy scene, where Oppenheimer is reporting the success of the mission, among a realisation in his mind and others, the immorality of what has just occurred, culminating with scientists puking outside – it’s extremely affective. I may not have always been able to follow the physics, or the play-by-play court proceedings, especially in the scenes with Lewis Strauss (Robert Downy Jr.), but I get the gist of the political flex, hierarchical double-crossings, and distain for ideologies that don’t align with the forward-surging U.S of A. This movie is offering so much, among the history lesson, metaphoric and literary comparisons, down to Prometheus and his impact on Earth – the weather kicks up before the atomic test, and a frantic windmill reminded me of the epic oil fire scene in There Will Be Blood; as if God is angry, and karma has come to intervene. Also profound are the harrowing consequences and paranoia of nuclear war, the rippling affects through history that we still feel today, and probably will worry about for eternity.
Lastly, I just want to talk about callbacks. A callback is a reference to something contained in the story that has happened before, perhaps now with a stronger insight. Watching a lot of stand-up comedy, I think callbacks need to evolve – they’re easy now, identifiable to the point of becoming cliché. In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan uses a lot of callbacks – verbally and visually – and risks overusing them. Less is more, I’d say; you don’t want to end up being able to see the man behind the curtain. Nolan also uses callbacks in his story structure, with the most notable example in Oppenheimer being that snub by the pond, where Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) refused to acknowledge Strauss. Nolan often folds his tales like pipped frosting, and I wouldn’t dream of advising the man to stop using that one of his many signatures, however.
Honestly, I was starting to question whether Christopher Nolan was losing his crown as the best director of our now – Dunkirk is technically brilliant, and Tenet was a personal project that failed to bring many along, including myself. Denis Villeneuve is certainly one name who may’ve challenged for the title. But if I had any doubts, let me just say, Oppenheimer could be Christopher Nolan’s best work ever… But then you remember The Dark Knight and, eh… But The Dark Knight was 15 years ago, and time moves forward. Oppenheimer reminds me of so many fantastic movies, and meshes their best qualities together to create a movie to stand on its own in triumph. I think Oppenheimer is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Five! Five, five, five.
5.0
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