Five-time Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, focuses on the race to create the ultimate weapon to end World War II and bring the soldiers home. The movie delves into the life of Robert Oppenheimer, who is widely regarded as “The Father of the Atomic Bomb.”
The film begins with Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, depicted as a brilliant but socially awkward man who attends prestigious colleges in Europe and is light years ahead of all his professors. Robert attends a communist party meeting where he meets Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a known communist. The two begin a tumultuous relationship marked by both passion and conflict.
It’s while Oppenheimer’s running the quantum physics department at the University of California, Berkeley, that the military starts eyeing him for a special project. However, they’re wary due to his communist ties. Desperately wanting to be part of the not-so-secret project, Oppenheimer decides to break off his relationship with Jean Tatlock and begins dating Kitty (Emily Blunt), a respectable, wealthy woman.
Now convinced that he’s a loyal American, General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), who’s in charge of The Manhattan Project, hires Oppenheimer to run the critically important project and to help select the scientists needed to build a superbomb. Oppenheimer is aware that the Germans already have an 18-month head start on developing the atomic bomb and convinces Groves that they must create a top-secret laboratory and keep both the military and scientists there until they’ve completed the job. Oppenheimer knows the area well and selects Los Alamos, New Mexico, to be the home base of The Manhattan Project.
For the next few years, Robert and his team of scientists work, argue, and struggle to develop and design the ultimate bomb. Finally, on July 16th 1945, they detonate the bomb and witness the world’s first nuclear explosion. Oppenheimer believes that he and his men have created a weapon to help ensure global peace, but his scientist friend Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) warns him, “You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves, and the world is not prepared.”
Intriguing, yet flawed and painfully overlong, Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s incredibly ambitious historical epic on the development of the atomic bomb and the man behind its creation. It’s really two films in one: the race to create the bomb, and then Oppenheimer’s fight to keep control of the post-war nuclear policy while having to defend his socialist and communist ties and personal relationships.
Cillian Murphy delivers a remarkable performance as Oppenheimer, with his haunting blue eyes and subtle facial expressions showing an incredible range of emotions, including concern, indignation, arrogance, and guilt. Murphy beautifully captures the complexity of the man who knew he was a genius and flaunted it but still craved and demanded respect from the scientific community. It’s a performance that hopefully will be remembered during Oscar season.
Robert Downey Jr. steals every scene he’s in as Lewis Strauss, the career politician who plays a key part in the fight for control of the United States’ nuclear policy after World War II. It’s another mesmerizing performance by one of the best actors in cinema today.
David Krumholtz delivers an authentic and memorable performance as physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, Oppenheimer’s friend and colleague from his European days who assists in the making of the atomic bomb even though the thought of using physics to make such a weapon fills him with dread. Unfortunately, Matt Damon is miscast as General Leslie Groves, the tough, gruff, confident, no-nonsense military man in charge. Damon portrays Groves as the confident and efficient backseat leader of the project with none of the abrasiveness and coldness General Groves was known for. That miscalculation could be an error in the script or direction given in bringing this character once again to the big screen.
Emily Blunt shines as Kitty, the loyal wife to Oppenheimer who isn’t at all happy and content with being a mother and becomes furious with her husband when he doesn’t fight hard enough – in her opinion – during the interrogation and investigation of his communist connections in the latter part of the film. Blunt’s performance is, like Cillian Murphy’s, awards-worthy.
The big-budget drama is visually impressive and benefits from superb, cutting-edge use of sound. The scene with the atomic bomb test is magnificent and terrifying. On the downside, the pacing is slow and uneven, especially when transitioning back and forth between the creation of the bomb in the 1940s to the hearings in the 1950s.
Led by an outstanding performance by Cillian Murphy and an engrossing story of how the nuclear age came into being, Oppenheimer is destined to be a serious contender during Oscar season. That is if Oscar season exists this year.
GRADE: B
MPAA Rating: R for nudity, language, and some sexuality
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Running Time: 3 hours
Studio: Universal Pictures
