Oppenheimer: a fascinating film about some difficult moral and scientific subjects
Christopher Nolan is one of those fabled directors often regarded as “visionary”. He doesn’t just tell a strong story. He tells it through properly cinematic means. If he’s not pulling narratives apart and reconstructing them out of sequence, he’s tearing apart reality to rearrange it in exciting ways. He gave us the shape-shifting worlds of Inception and Memento, and then recently, the hugely complicated but fun-so-long-as-you-didn’t-think-about-it Tenet.
Much was expected, then, of his newest film, Oppenheimer, which tells the story of the man behind the Manhattan Project, who as the film frames it, became the “modern Prometheus”, by bringing fire into the world. The movie has been widely acclaimed and hailed as Nolan’s best work and perhaps it is but, to be honest, it all gets as confusing as special relativity; the case that as a body approaches the event horizon of a “perfect movie” then gravity does some very odd things and critics start to overlook the very obvious flaws.
There is no doubt that it is a significant movie which finally tells a foundational story about the modern world. Cillian Murphy is already and deservedly a solid bet for next year’s Best Actor Oscar. Whether it’s just the months of trailers that have cemented him in the role or he really is this good, he does embody Oppenheimer even more than photographs of Oppenheimer seem to do. He captures the gaunt, neurotic, high achiever who did important work in the study of black holes and quantum mechanics before he had to compromise his humanitarianism in order to pragmatically counter the Nazi threat. Murphy’s is a career-defining performance, as too, perhaps, is that of Robert Downey Jnr, almost indistinguishable as Lewis Strauss the shrewd beast of Capitol Hill. If Downey seemed bored and often frustrated by his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then his performance as Strauss is a sign of a new and better direction. People will say Murphy will win an Oscar but also don’t bet against Downey. He really is that good.
A film, however, is more than the sum of its performances and Oppenheimer is very much the product of its director. Yet is also not typical of Christopher Nolan. Nor is it up there with his very best films –Interstellar, Inception, Memento, and the three Batman movies. One might even argue it’s not even as good as The Prestige but, rather, on a level with his previous fact-heavy movie, Dunkirk. Time will be the judge and maybe the IMDB score will begin to slip once the marketing hype has passed. Perhaps time will eventually judge it as another solid and enjoyable biopic but one that doesn’t do a great deal out of the ordinary.
The heart of the movie – the fissionable material, if you will – is the science and engineering behind the development of the first atomic bomb. The scenes in which Oppenheimer is working in particle physics are beautifully handled. The film is at its best when Oppenheimer is at his best, surrounded by the great and sometimes not so good of theoretical physics. Here Nolan’s visionary eye brings something a little special to the mix, splicing in shots of particles accompanied by a suitably primal soundscape. The screen fragments and we hear the particles hiss and fizz. These are the scenes that elevate the movie, as do those scenes later on when the results of the bombs dropped on Japan lead Oppenheimer deep into his moral suffering. There the screen-space shimmers with energy, the backgrounds pulse, and we are taunted with periods of silence before the blast wave of Oppenheimer’s emotions hit us. It’s so artfully done you begin to understand why the film has so much acclaim.
Where the film is less good is when it moves beyond science. It leans rather heavily – and perhaps too crudely – into his love life. At one point, Oppenheimer is seen naked, having sex with his lover, Jean Tatlock (played by Florence Pugh), in the middle of a committee hearing – meant to dramatise how naked and exposed he felt at that moment but still a puzzling choice. Another odd choice is the way Nolan has Oppenheimer speak his most memorable quote (“Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”) right in the middle of another sex scene. The viewer will be lucky if they don’t emerge from the movie associating the phrase with Pugh’s breasts. It’s a very striking juxtaposition, but so too is the role of women in the film entirely. Pugh and Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, are excellent but in what amount to very supporting roles. For all the pretence about emotional complexity, the film’s interest in Oppenheimer’s female relationships is less successful than how it delves into his rivalry with fellow scientists, such as his combative friendship with the so-called father of the H-Bomb, Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) and respectful friendship with General Groves (Matt Damon).
Where the film perhaps is at its weakest, however, is around politics. Oppenheimer was a victim of the second Red Scare, eventually having his security clearance revoked and thereby ending his participation in the US Atomic program. These sequences are shot in black and white and, despite Downey’s dominating performance, the film veers closest to an Oliver Stone history project, in that it’s never boring but it is also never quite gripping enough amid the swirl of names and faces. The outcome is also predictable in the sense that it’s obvious from the previous two hours that America’s military and political establishment would eventually make a scapegoat of Oppenheimer. The film runs three hours and whilst some critics have said it would have been better had it been trimmed by an hour they are perhaps overstating it; the last thirty minutes do seem a prolonged coda after the film hits the last note of its perfect fifth act with Oppenheimer’s meeting with President Truman.
Overall, it’s a movie worthy of a trip to the cinema to see it in its big screen (maybe, if you’re lucky, IMAX) glory, though perhaps later in the run when audiences have thinned out a lot. People attracted by the media buzz are wont to get up and start wandering around during the physics talk, which says something about Oppenheimer which is worth emphasising. It is a fascinating film about some difficult moral and scientific subjects, done in a way that ensures it appeals to the market. Yet that is also its weakness. The science isn’t quite scientific enough and employs some lazy shortcuts. Einstein is used like a stagey prop and played by the always reliable Tom Conti but it doesn’t quite work. Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr is another example of a director filling roles with those actors he enjoys working with but might not necessarily be right for the role. Branagh’s accent here is all over the place, though thankfully limited to just a couple of scenes. None of that detracts from the movie too much but does underscore that whilst Oppenheimer works so hard to create a critical mass, it doesn’t quite achieve fission.
@DavidWaywell
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