Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer; historical drama, USA, 2023; D: Christopher Nolan, S: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman

J. Robert Oppenheimer is fascinated by physics while a student at the University of Cambridge. As a grown man back in the US, he reads that the Germans discovered nuclear fission, which alarms the American government. World War II erupts, and US Colonel Leslie Groves recruits Oppenheimer and many other scientists to try build the first atomic bomb in an isolated town built just for them, Los Alamos. Oppenheimer becomes the director of this Project Manhattan. They succeed and detonate the first atomic bomb in July 1 9 4 5. The US Army immediately drops two on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ends World War II. Afterwards, Chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss initiates a committee questioning Oppenheimer's loyalty due to his previous links with Communists, end thus ends his security clearance. 

The biopic about Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb", is good, yet still a little bit overrated and overlong. The middle part of "Oppenheimer", the one showing how the US Army actually built a whole isolated research town, Los Alamos, in the middle of nowhere in order for the scientists to create the first atomic bomb is excellent—but the first part showing Oppenheimer's private life and relationships is boring, whereas the final, third part, involving a committee hearing in the comically small room that can barely fit nine people is unnecessary, since there are no stakes in it after the detonation of the atomic bomb after which such an overlong epilogue feels like a 45-minute anticlimax. Cillian Murphy is brilliant and perfectly cast at the tormented title protagonist, achieving a huge career boost, but Matt Damon almost steals the show as US Colonel Leslie Groves, in the genius performance that is much better than Robert Downey Jr.'s as Lewis Strauss, who doesn't get much to do in the script. In one delicious sequence, Groves meets Oppenheimer and tells him he heard Oppenheimer is a "dilettante, a suspected communist, unstable, egotistical, neurotic", upon Oppenheimer interrupts: "Nothing good? Not even 'he's brilliant, but'...?" - "Well, brilliance is taken for granted, so no."

Christopher Nolan sometimes has troubles with illogical plot holes when he writes his own scripts ("Inception", "The Dark Knight Rises"), yet by adapting a real-life biopic he managed to avoid those issues this time around, since the events unfold naturally. However, as a director, Nolan has trouble finding the right pace in this movie, since several moments are excessive, rushed, whereas a big nuissance is the musical score which plays almost all the time, nonstop, sometimes so detached from the rest of the film that it's even bombastic during just normal, static scenes of two people talking. Two great sequences: one is the colossal countdown until the first test detonation of the atomic bomb at night, when Oppenheimer and the crew watch the mushroom cloud through dark glasses, which reaches almost Hitchcock's intensity of suspense; the other is when Oppenheimer holds a speech after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, while he has a hallucination of a bright explosion "wiping out" all the audience in the room. It also shows some rarely talked about details, such as when the nuclear scientists were unsure if, once started, the nuclear explosion may cause a chain reaction which may never stop. The moral and ethical question the movie poses is if Oppenheimer is guilty for any future use of atomic bombs in any conflict. Sadly, some sharper philosophical dialogues are missing. "Oppenheimer" should have ended after two hours, after the atomic bomb testing, since the committee hearing is given more room for the movie's running time than the sole room it was held in, a small private hearing without much weight later on. It didn't merit prolonging the story for another 45 minutes, while one dumb scene (Kitty imagines her husband Oppenheimer is naked (!) while sitting during his testimony in front of the committee, and then even that he is having sex with Jean Tatlock (!) in the room) should have been cut. Overall, still an intelligent depiction of these events.

Grade:++