Oppenheimer (2023)

Intense movie. I had no idea about who this person was. I found the movie very interesting and educational. 
“Oppenheimer” is a 2023 epic biographical thriller drama film directed by Christopher Nolan. It delves into the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who played a pivotal role in developing the first nuclear weapons during World War II12. The movie chronicles Oppenheimer’s journey from his university days to the post-WW2 era, where his fame entangled him in political machinations3. If you’re intrigued by historical dramas and scientific intrigue, this film is definitely worth a watch!

Oppenheimer is the true story of J Robert Oppenheimer, played amazingly by Cillian Murphy, who became known as "the father of the atomic bomb".  This 3 hour long biographical drama follows Oppenheimer's life, from a young age, when he is appointed to head the Manhattan Project.   The story tracks Oppenheimer through his life,  starting in the 1920s  and gives us insight to his  personal and professional milestones, including his work on the bomb, the controversies that surrounded him, the anti-Communist attacks that tried to ruined him, as well as the friendships and romances that both helped him through his life but also had a negative effect on him.. We learn about his affair with Jean Tatlock, played perfectly by Florence Pugh and about his marriage to Kitty Harrison, played on spot by Emily Blunt, , who accompanies him to Los Alamos, and with whom he had two children.   Oppenheimer is a brilliant, intense movie that brings us into the  life of the American theoretical physicist who helped research and develop the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II — a destructive and horrible act that destroyed so many lives and has many implications and ethical issues to this day.  

Prior to seeing this movie, I had no prior knowledge of Harry Oppenheimer. As a result of the overwhelming amount of excitement that was being generated about the film, I made the decision to see it. Even while it was really intriguing, exciting, and highly instructive, I can't help but question how much of it was fabricated in order to make the movie come off as "better." But this is hardly a movie that will help you relax.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a gripping biographical drama that delves into the complex life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. With stunning performances, masterful direction, and a haunting score, the film captures the moral dilemmas and profound consequences of scientific discovery in a way that is both compelling and thought-provoking.

Cillian Murphy delivers an extraordinary performance as Oppenheimer, portraying his transformation from a brilliant physicist to a man haunted by the ethical implications of his work. Murphy brings depth to the character, balancing Oppenheimer’s intellectual brilliance with his emotional turmoil, making the audience empathize with his struggles. The supporting cast, including Emily Blunt as his wife Katherine, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, and Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, delivers equally powerful performances that enrich the narrative.

Nolan’s direction is both ambitious and precise, seamlessly intertwining timelines and perspectives to depict the development of the Manhattan Project. The film’s non-linear structure adds layers to the storytelling, allowing viewers to piece together Oppenheimer’s journey and the political machinations surrounding the bomb. The cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema is visually stunning, capturing both the beauty of the New Mexico desert and the starkness of nuclear devastation.

One of the film's most striking aspects is its exploration of the moral complexities inherent in scientific progress. Nolan doesn’t shy away from the gravity of Oppenheimer’s contributions and the catastrophic consequences that followed. The dialogue is rich with philosophical musings, reflecting on themes of power, responsibility, and the human cost of innovation.

The score, composed by Ludwig Göransson, heightens the film's emotional impact, with its haunting melodies perfectly complementing the tension and gravitas of the narrative.

In summary, Oppenheimer is a profound cinematic achievement that challenges viewers to reflect on the implications of scientific advancement. It’s a film that transcends mere biography, offering a deep exploration of ambition, morality, and the human experience. Nolan has crafted a powerful and resonant story that will linger in the minds of audiences long after the credits roll. This is a must-see for anyone interested in history, ethics, or the intricacies of human ambition. 

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer is the latest of these men, though in this case his focus is one the world is willing to bend itself around. When Robert, played in Oppenheimer by Cillian Murphy at his most angular, gets appointed as head of the Manhattan Project, he has a whole town built at the remote site so the scientists he recruits won’t have to leave their families behind in order to develop the nuclear bomb. Even the location of Los Alamos, which he selects himself, is dear to him. “When I was a kid, I thought if I could find a way to combine physics and New Mexico, my life would be perfect,” he muses while on one of his trips out there to ride horses through the mountains. Robert has it all for a while, though the price turns out to be so much higher than he could have imagined.

Oppenheimer is a movie so sprawling it’s difficult to contend with. It’s rich, uncompromising, and borderline unwieldy, but more than anything, it’s a tragedy of operatic grandeur despite so many of its scenes consisting of men talking in rooms — conference rooms, Senate chambers, university classrooms, and emptied-out restaurants, all the prosaic places where the fate of the earth gets hashed out. Its scope comes from Murphy’s haunted performance and the way the movie (with help from Ludwig Göransson’s panic attack of a score) submerges you in the mind-set of its protagonist as though it can create a psychic connection to the past. Robert isn’t an easy character to understand; he’s arrogant, blunt, and aloof and possesses an intelligence about the unseen world of physics that makes him seem half-alien. But Nolan doesn’t want Robert to be relatable. He just wants to explore how his flawed humanity co-exists with his genius in what is ultimately a film about moral slippage and how someone who feels so certain of his own clear-eyed ideals finds himself standing in front of a screaming crowd celebrating the deaths of thousands of people in Japan.

Beginning with Robert’s time as a rising star on campus and a left-wing dabbler, there’s a constant flow of figures through his life, and rather than streamline them, Nolan allows the names and faces to become a disorienting barrage. It works because Robert himself is the still point in the film’s turning world and because Nolan puts people with distinctive faces in these dozens of smaller roles. Oppenheimer is a testament to the power of casting and how much an actor’s look and presence alone can fill out a character. David Dastmalchian, with his glorious hangdog mug, is Robert’s betrayer, William Borden, while Benny Safdie is memorably abrasive as H-bomb pioneer Edward Teller. David Krumholtz, as physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, is a standout for providing Robert with tender, down-to-earth counsel, while Jason Clarke preens as the menacing attorney Roger Robb. Josh Hartnett is Robert’s frustrated counterpart Ernest Lawrence, Kenneth Branagh is a jolly Niels Bohr, Rami Malek turns up in a small but key role as David Hill, and James Urbaniak — it would basically be illegal to make this movie without James Urbaniak — shows up in a wordless appearance as a frightened Kurt Gödel.

Matt Damon is the impatient Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, who has the cat-herding task of managing Robert but ultimately reveals himself to be an ally. There are women in the movie too, though not many. Emily Blunt brings an air of old Hollywood and an impressive bitterness to the part of Robert’s wife, Kitty, a mercurial alcoholic who was with someone else when they first met. As Jean Tatlock, the troubled grad student, psychiatrist, and Communist Party member with whom Robert has an off-and-on romance. Nolan has never been great with female characters, but it matters less in a movie that is so much about men making momentous decisions for everyone else while pretending they aren’t bringing their own histories and personal baggage to the table. Lewis, meanwhile, goes from Robert’s alleged admirer to his stealth foe after a petty humiliation, all those grand ideals about the good of the country and the world subsumed in a desire for power and revenge.

Real power is found in those closed-off rooms, not out in the New Mexico desert where the first nuclear weapon was detonated. But when Oppenheimer does show the Trinity test, it’s a feat of monstrous awe, especially in Imax. A vast column of fire casts an unearthly glow on the faces in the audience, like a mirror of the characters onscreen crouched in the dirt clutching plates of welder’s glass to peer through. It’s terrible and splendid, a weapon meant to be so frightening that it would end the use of weapons forever — though, of course, that didn’t happen. Did Robert really believe it would, or had he deluded himself in the moment to justify the thrill of invention? Oppenheimer suggests it was unclear even to him until he’s confronted with the stomping feet of an ecstatic crowd cheering his name. That pounding, which recurs throughout the film, could just as easily be the sound of soldiers marching off to another war — the specter of which, it turns out, can’t be banished, even by the sight of destruction so terrible it leaves its creator forever haunted.