The newly minted movie, directed and scribed by Christopher Nolan is a tour de force and remarkable for its intellectual heft yet humane portrayal of a man who is responsible for giving the nuclear weapon out of necessity to mankind back in World War 2. Oppenheimer decides to help the US to develop the bomb because he fears the Nazis might get it first.
Cillian Murphy is restrained yet charismatic enough to pull you in every scene, this man certainly commands a presence that is critical to give a human touch to a 3-hour dialogue-heavy flick here. His wife, Kitty, played by Emily Blunt is a very mature and realistic woman character who brings down the sometimes rosy-tinted husband back to the ugly, human world. It takes a lot of skill to be there and yet restrained, she has one pivotal role in the movie where she finally unleashed the very reason she exists in this story.
Robert Downey Jnr as dignified Lewis Strauss is his foil, and much to the audience’s delight brings grim gravitas to his character who is developed as some sort of antagonist in the movie against the titular character. You have to watch for his subtle cues to flesh out his inner meanings while playing around with his words. This movie is a reminder of why he is one of the best, many people still think Tony Stark is the best, which is shallow. He is more than that and it shows here.
The rest of the crew deliver what they have to deliver in spades despite a short presence, I think many of them don’t want to miss a chance to work with the remarkable director. The music composed by Ludwig Göransson brings the sad yet grim nuance to tell the inner turmoil of Oppenheimer as he is the usher of a terrifying weapon to mankind’s hand hence the title of the book that this movie is based on, The American Prometheus. Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) even used it during a crucial scene where he is debriefing the American scientists after his escape from Nazi-occupied Europe.
The cinematography, holy shit, is mesmerizing - you can feel its real, and the lack of generous CG really helps bring out the realism that this movie needs to reel you in. The nitpick I have is sometimes the music will drone out the conversations so I have to quickly glance at the subtitle to grasp the gist. Something Nolan did in Tenet and Dark Knight, don’t know why it rears its head here too.
The pacing is fast, explaining his beginnings when he is flirting with Communist left-wingers in American intelligentsia in 1930s where he met several people like Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) to his joining the secret US program to develop the weapon after meeting General Groves (Matt Damon) and subsequent subject to McCarthy-stic trials on suspicions of being a Communist and traitor. The latter serves as the central nervous system of the movie with important events like the Manhattan Project and important life event(s) tacked on.
One thing I liked about Nolan is his ability to summarize difficult ideas and make it movie friendly so the audience can follow. Here, he did it in par excellence. Never once did I feel stupid despite I have little understanding of physics and whatnot during the movie. Nolan’s ability to adapt a complex story and make it watchable is the reason why he is one of the best in the current generation.
If you can, go watch it in IMAX.
A hearty, worthy 9.2 out of 10.
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You captured a lot of my thoughts about the movie. In my case, I don’t have the best recall of exact facts but what really got me was how much the film was contextualizing his work and his world against the modernism movement at the time (including one blaring reference to the abstract movement by way of Picasso, who also played a huge aesthetic role in the Spanish revolution via his Guernica mural), and also how it reminded me that the early philosophers (before the split between what became alchemy and physics) were basically scientists especially physicists. You can arguably draw a straight line between classical western philosophy and where Oppenheimer ended up, the reference to baghavad gita notwithstanding.
But those are all the thematic stuff that I picked up. Film-wise, a tremendous display of editing and just incredibly interesting use of time to tell what is essentially a straightforward parable.
