Oppenheimer Review

Movie fans always anticipate Christopher Nolan’s films. He moves into the world of biopics with his historical epic about J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer follows the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), from 1926 to 1954. This includes his student days in Cambridge and travelling around Europe to learn from the best physicists, teaching quantum physics at Berkeley and being politically active, and his work leading the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer has to face scientific, political, and personal challenges throughout this period.

Nolan is one of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers of his generation. Critics and audiences have well received his films. His run of films from The Dark Knight to Dunkirk were box-office successes. However, after Tenet which underperformed at the box office because it was released in 2020, Nolan left Warner Brothers because of the studio’s simultaneous releasing strategy.

Nolan’s new home, Universal, allowed the director to have carte blanche. What he got to make was a big budget awards bait film. Plus, he was able to get Universal to agree to an exclusive theatrical release of at least 90 days which stands in contrast to many films coming out on streaming services soon after a cinematic release. Because of this long release window and the positive reception, Oppenheimer is going to have a healthy box-office return.

Nolan has been a cinematic risk-taker since he makes dense, complex films and he treats the audience with intelligential respect. Oppenheimer wasn’t any different since it told two stories, had a focus on theoretical physics, and many historical events like the development of the Atomic Bomb, the debate about using The Bomb, and the development of Mutual Assured Destruction. Oppenheimer was more closely aligned to Nolan’s Dunkirk, because that was also a historical drama set during the war, with a little bit of Interstellar since Nolan showed off his love for science.

Oppenheimer was one of Nolan’s more conventional films. It was a prestigious film that was designed to win lots of awards. Oppenheimer’s focus on a brilliant man and what made him tick. Oppenheimer can be compared to A Beautiful Mind and The Theory of Everything because they were films that looked at the personal issues John Nash and Stephen Hawking experienced. An even more apt comparison would be with The Imitation Game since both films looked at men who played a pivotal role during the war, and celebrated their brilliance and their suffering after the war.

Oppenheimer had an episodic quality to it. The film was structured by focusing on certain events and moments of Oppenheimer’s life. The film starts with Oppenheimer’s student days, shows his life as a university professor where he tried to unionise his profession, a look at Oppenheimer’s romantic relationships, discovering there was a risk of denotating the Bomb could lead to an endless chain reaction that would destroy the world, and Oppenheimer becoming a target of Boris Pash (Casey Affleck), a hardline security officer because of Oppenheimer’s left-wing beliefs.

For audience members interested in history, Oppenheimer will give them a lot to think about. There was a lot going on since the film looked at the process of making The Bomb, the debate about making and using The Bomb, and the security investigation into Oppenheimer. There was a compelling moral debate about using The Bomb since it would kill a lot of civilians but not using it could lead to more death. The film did a fine showing how MAD developed since the use of The Bomb led to the arms race. Oppenheimer also showed that necessity was the mother of invention and that developing The Bomb was a challenge that required America’s industrial and scientific might to overcome the greatest scientific challenge of the time.

Oppenheimer was a talky film that was filled with characters. Because of this, it was easy to get lost in all the names mentioned, especially during the Senate hearing. The broad brushstrokes were comprehensible but audiences could get lost with the finer details. Oppenheimer is going to be one of those films that would require multiple viewings to get all the information.

There were elements of the film that weren’t as fleshed out. Oppenheimer’s romantic relationships were pushed aside, especially Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt). They get married, have a child, and Kitty becomes bitter because she was a biology graduate who had to become a housewife. She was a shrew of a character. Blunt and Florence Pugh are great actresses but Oppenheimer did not give them their deepest roles.

The main aim of Oppenheimer was to be a character piece. It was about a flawed man who was brilliant and idealistic but he was stubborn. He ignored advice from his colleague, Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), who told Oppenheimer he needed to tone down his political rhetoric or risk his career. Oppenheimer wanted to be a part of the Manhattan Project because he wanted to defeat the greatest evil in the world, especially due to Oppenheimer being Jewish. As the film reached the second half Oppenheimer had to bear the weight of his invention causing so many deaths and changing the world radically. Hence why he was called the ‘American Prometheus.’

Oppenheimer was a more conventional, old-fashioned film from Nolan that will probably get a lot of awards attention. People interested in science and history will be compelled by the film which provides food for thought.