OPPENHEIMER (2023)
Christopher Nolan Bounces Back With this Densely Layered Biopic
Grade: A+
Multiple viewings are required for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, an intense, epic, densely plotted biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb. It is impossible to take in every theme, performance, and character name in just one sitting; the movie is far too rich in detail for that. It is a vast improvement over Nolan’s previous flick, the spy thriller Tenet (2020) which, while ambitious, was also ear-bleedingly loud and confusing to an alienating degree. Oppenheimer is also super loud and not always easy to understand, but rather than pushing us away, it pulls us in with its production, screenplay, and the performances of its cast.
Cillian Murphy, a longtime supporting actor in Nolan’s movies, takes center stage here as the titular physicist. He portrays Oppenheimer as a man haunted all his life, first by the sublime horror of the physical universe, and later by the destructive power that universe can unleash. The story follows his participation in the Manhattan Project, as well as a series of McCarthy-esque hearings in the 1950s determining whether he is affiliated with the Soviet Union. Writer/Director Nolan effectively uses a technique he is famous for, the nonlinear narrative, to move back and forth between these two time periods.
The film also explores Oppenheimer’s relationships and interactions with many people, some of whom are directly or indirectly related to communism, including his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt), his mentally ill lover Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), physicist Edward Teller (Benny Sadfie), who first proposed the idea of the hydrogen bomb, and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). Overall, it is a huge cast of characters, but each actor gives an incredible amount of conviction to their roles. This is not a mere ensemble movie. These performers all have something to do; some are given more screen time than others, but they make their time memorable.
The director of photography is Hoyte Van Hoytema, who partially uses IMAX cameras to showcase the emotional expressions of the characters, the vast terrain of the Los Alamos testing site, special effects sequences for the sun, stars and atomic explosions (none of which are digital), and a curious sequence where the perspective of one character (who, for the sake of spoilers, will not be named) is shot entirely in black and white.
The reason behind this last artistic choice is open to interpretation; then again, it is probably explained in an interview. One definition could be the limitations of black and white; despite its rich look, it can only show so much. Oppenheimer’s point of view, on the other hand, is always in color; throughout the trials, he can see the potential nightmares of the weapon he helped create, whereas the character who sees in black and white focuses solely on what he thinks Oppenheimer is doing to him.
It is Oppenheimer’s fear that permeates the film from the detonation of the Trinity test, the buildup to which is almost unbearably tense. It partially gets buried under the hearings, the length of which may threaten to turn off viewers, but it comes right back at the very end, as a horrified Oppenheimer imagines what the future could hold. Things were complicated earlier in the film, but now they can be easily summed up by Oppenheimer’s famous quote: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Is Oppenheimer Nolan’s best film? It may very well be. In years past, he has graced the screen with adventures of dream stealers, winged vigilantes, astronauts, and time-inverted spies. He has always been an intense filmmaker, and now he has brought that intensity to one of the most heavily layered plots of his career. A single review cannot sum it all up; as previously stated, it has to be seen multiple times to be fully absorbed.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay: Christopher Nolan (Based on the novel American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin)
Producers: Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Emily Blunt (Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer), Matt Damon (Leslie Groves), Robert Downey, Jr. (Lewis Strauss), Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock), Josh Hartnett (Ernest Laurence), Benny Sadfie (Edward Teller), Casey Affleck (Boris Pash), Rami Malek (David Hill), Jason Clarke (Roger Robb), Dylan Arnold (Frank Oppenheimer), Kenneth Branagh (Niehls Bohr), Tom Conti (Albert Einstein), Many Others
Rated: R (for some sexuality, nudity, and language)
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