Movie Review - Oppenheimer

I realize my opinion may cut against the grain of popular opinion, but that's never stopped me before. :-)

What I liked

The best thing about this movie is the superb acting, and not just by Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer. In general, the acting by the entire cast is fantastic, which is a testament to the direction of Christopher Nolan.

7:42●●● 95%

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Robert Downey Jr. did a great job as Lewis Strauss, and Emily Blunt was brilliant as Kitty Oppenheimer. I think Emily in particular stands out and I could see her getting a supporting actress nod when Oscars roll around. She didn't get a great deal of screen time, but she made the most of what she had. What helps is that her character had a lot of emotional scenes that span from anger to sadness to disgust.

For once, a linear story, Nolan should make.

And now, the discontent for the movie. Without giving anything away, most of the story takes place in two different time frames: the building of the bomb, and about four years after the fact. I appreciate that the scenes after the war are in black-and-white and the scenes from the time of building the bomb are in color. That makes it easy to quickly clue in which time we're in. Without that, I don't think anyone could follow this movie.

I feel that Nolan decided on this format because, well... Because Christopher Nolan hasn't made a linear movie yet. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I recall that the Batman movies were generally linear but with flashbacks. Besides those movies, Nolan is infatuated with non-linear storytelling.

I think non-linear could have worked for this story if he had reduced the number of scenes cutting back and forth, and made the scenes longer, where we're in one-time frame for a little while instead of jumping back and forth so much. But at the same time, this story could have worked linearly as well.

Too

Many

Short

Scenes

Too long? Maybe, a little. But way too many scenes. I would love to see a breakdown of how many scenes there were in this movie compared to others. I think they may have set a record. It seemed to me that most scenes were less than two minutes long, many were under a minute.

I really notice that as I'm watching the movie to try and find Peetimes for the RunPee app. Generally, we try to find a few 3-4 minutes long Peetimes where there's nothing of great importance happening. Or to be more precise, a Peetime must have scenes that are easy to describe. So a Peetime might contain crucial exposition, but if it's easy to describe that information, it fits in a Peetime. On the other hand, scenes that are highly emotional are nearly impossible to describe.

There were lots of Peetime-worthy scenes in Oppenheimer. But the problem is that if there are five scenes in a four-minute span, then it's impossible to concisely summarize what those scenes are.

Focus on what's important

And now, my primary disagreement about this story is that it is too focused on the "trial" that Oppenheimer goes through. Was what happened to Oppenheimer fair? Certainly not. But at the same time, I'm not going to feel sorry for him. It isn't like he spent the rest of his life in prison. He was a celebrated hero by many, and at worst controversial to some. In the grand scheme of things, he did just fine. The disgrace of losing his security clearance is not, in my opinion, subject matter worthy of a movie.

However, his views on using nuclear weapons and the arms race are entirely pertinent. I wish more had been made of that.

The movie we need

I would hope the popularity of this movie will inspire someone to make a movie that covers the events of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings from the Japanese perspective. We need to see and remember just how terrifying and inhumane nuclear weapons are to be reminded of just how important it is to make sure they are never used again.

Grade: B-

A second take from Rob Williams

I think it’s fair to say that Christopher Nolan is in the same category as Steven Spielberg, Danny Boyle, Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, and Luc Besson…directors who can “open” a film. It’s the sort of club that Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Akira Kurosawa would have been in were they still with us today. Oh, before the comments section starts looking like a Hollywood telephone directory I know there are many, many more; Guy Ritchie, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, etc.

I can’t remember when I heard that Oppenheimer was going to be his next project after Tenet but I remember thinking that it was an unusual choice. I thought that his style was along the convoluted, mind bending, sci-fi-ish sort of lines. Interstellar, Inception, and his Batman trilogy all preceded Tenet and seemed of a type. So why go to a historical, based on or around factual events subject. But then I had another think and remembered that he had also made Dunkirk and The Prestige. And he’d made a pretty good fist of them too.

So it was more a question of my expectations that were running along the wrong lines. Christopher Nolan is capable of writing, producing, and directing excellent films on a variety of subjects. What is a constant among his work is the scale. He is an advocate of shooting on large formats. I think he’d have IMAX on his phone if Apple could sort out the licensing. He also prefers shooting on film stock which, quite frankly, doesn’t surprise me in the least. To be honest, though, I can’t help but think that, as the majority of cinemas now use digital projectors, what is the point of that particular battle. Still…he’s the expert and not me!

Now I Am Become Death

So what is Oppenheimer about? Obviously it is the story of the theoretical Physicist  J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). The film falls, broadly, into three parts. The first part is about his early days as a student where he comes across the likes of Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), and Katherine Puening (Emily Blunt). These associations lead to a variety of outcomes ranging from a vibrant sex life, to his downfall because of, mainly, his friends' links to communism.

The middle section sees him after he has earned his doctorate and is setting out to teach the “new” physics as quantum mechanics, uncertainty theories, and the whole E=mc2 thing  was known back then. Talking about E=mc2 we get to see him meeting Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) which leads to problems with Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr). While this is going on Oppenheimer is approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to head up the development of the atomic bomb under the code name The Manhattan Project. He has carte blanche in who he has on his team and even gets to make an entire town, Los Alamos.

The Destroyer Of Worlds

The final section is, basically, “OK Dr Oppenheimer, thank you for all your hard work in helping to end World War Two but it seems that you knew some people who prefer sharing over selfishness so we are going to kick you out.” If you haven’t already guessed, I tend to be on the centre/left with regards to European politics or rabid communist from a USA standpoint. As a result I found the final section the most intense. Eventually, when things calmed down a bit, Oppenheimer received the Enrico Fermi Award from Vice President Lyndon B Johnson. 

So how was it? I thought it was excellent but, as I’ve said elsewhere, I do enjoy a court case drama. Despite the insistence that the third act was not a trial but a security clearance appraisal it had enough of the trappings to make it feel like a trial and had the same excitement. The first part was interesting and the middle was positively exciting! Like Apollo 13 and Rush it is one of those films where you know the outcome, if you’ve learnt a modicum of history, but it still manages to raise the adrenaline.

The Man Who Moved The Earth

Another side effect of Mr Nolan’s status is that he can call in all manner of big names for small cameos. It’s quite a fun game watching and ticking off all the famous faces that pop up. Dane DeHaan, Rami Malek, Gary Oldman, Casey Affleck, and Matthew Modine all pop up for a couple of scenes and a few lines. Funnily enough though, long time cameo companion Michael Caine is absent but Hoyte Van Hoytema returns as cinematographer. I don’t know if Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer have had a falling out but it was Ludwig Göransson who came back to write the music. Still, it all worked very well for me and, as with Tenet, I shall be seeing it  again soon.

Rob's grade: A+

Plot
The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.