OPPENHEIMER

 

The best way I can sum up Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER is to call it a thinking person's historical epic. It's a three-hour film filled with all sorts of technical wizardry, but it's really more of an intimate drama than a big-budget spectacle. 

Despite what the trailers and advertising make you think, there's much more to OPPENHEIMER than just the man's involvement with the development of the atomic bomb during WWII. Nolan shifts back and forth into various times in J. Robert Oppenheimer's history, examining parts of his life before and after the Manhattan Project. 

I appreciated OPPENHEIMER, but I must say it's a film that's easier to admire than get excited about. Cillian Murphy is excellent in the title role, and I give credit to the actor and to Christopher Nolan for not trying to make Oppenheimer the person more palatable to a mainstream audience. I believe that one of the themes Nolan was trying to put across was the irony of Oppenheimer having such a profound effect on humanity when the man himself seemed to be somewhat removed from his fellow beings. 

The overall quirkiness of Oppenheimer may have been the main reason why it was hard for me to be fully engaged toward his personal story. Murphy's Oppenheimer isn't the most appealing character in the world, and neither are his wife (Emily Blunt) or his mistress (Florence Pugh). The scenes where Murphy, Blunt, and Pugh interact with one another are in my opinion the weakest in the film. 

The sequences dealing with the Manhattan Project are the main highlights here, with the Trinity test being a true stunner. After the WWII phase, the story becomes almost a courtroom drama, with Oppenheimer getting ensnared in bureaucratic and Cold War backbiting. 

There's a lot to deal with in OPPENHEIMER. It's a film filled with debate and discussion, a film with no easy answers. I certainly think you should go see it in a theater, but I also believe this movie might even work better after multiple viewings at home, where one can go back at one's leisure and discover things that might have been missed or overlooked the first time. It does have a fantastic ensemble cast, and brilliant editing and cinematography. 

OPPENHEIMER is very well made, and very well done, but personally it didn't have as much of an impact on me as I thought it would. Another review of the film stated that it was two ninety-minute movies mixed together, and that's a very good point.....with the 90 minutes dealing with the atom bomb being more impressive.