Movie Review: ‘Oppenheimer’

Review by James Lindorf

In a day of release schedule battles and quick exits from theaters, Universal offered the world to Christopher Nolan to lure him away from a nearly 20-year relationship with Warner Bros. $200 million to spend on production and advertising, a 6-week window where his film is the only Universal project released and a theatrical run of at least 100 days. After his Action Sci-Fi film “Tenet” underperformed at the box office and underwhelmed the people who did make it to the theater, Nolan is returning to the safety of WWII epics. In “Dunkirk,” Nolan tackled the complex evacuation by focusing more on logistics than people, but this time he focuses on the contributions of a single person and how they helped change the world forever. Coming to theaters July 21st with a runtime of 180 minutes, Nolan’s new biopic “Oppenheimer” is much like its inspiration, a little pretentious, self-indulgent, and brilliant.

The film centers around Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) as the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer, aka father of the atomic bomb. It also features one of the most excellent casts ever assembled. Robert is highly respected in his professional life for bringing theoretical physics to the united states and leading the hunt for black holes. He must balance his time between requests for collaboration from dozens of scientists, including Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid), Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Isidor Rabi (David Krumholtz), David Hill (Rami Malek) and Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh). When Hitler invaded Poland, it triggered a race to be the first country to harness nuclear weapons, and it wasn’t long before the American government invaded Oppenheimer’s life. Leading the charge are General Leslie Groves Jr (Matt Damon), the director of the Manhattan Project, and security experts Nichols (Dane DeHann) and Pash (Casey Affleck). As much as he is needed, many in the military do not trust the free-thinking, left-leaning scientist. Pulling Robert even further out of his comfort zone is his interactions with the political world and figures on all levels, from Alden Ehrenreich’s political aid to Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and all the way up to President Harry S. Truman (Gary Oldman). Outside of the lab, Robert’s personal life is dominated by two women. Florence Pugh is psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Robert’s first love, but his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, played by Emily Blunt.

“Oppenheimer” died 56 years ago with a service attended by nearly 1,000 people. Still, Nolan’s film is the greatest elegy he will ever receive. It would fall into idolatry if not for the brief coverage of his flaws like naivety, stubbornness, and womanizing. Oppenheimer’s approach to scientific breakthroughs and cultural and societal issues is presented as the ideal, and he is generally beyond reproach. Nolan uses his experiences going from a private citizen to a war hero to a political outsider to examine our current political climate. Doctors, scientists, and progressives are again labeled traitorous for fighting against practices seeking to reduce our society to 1950s or even 1850s standards. Nolan doesn’t provide a straightforward solution to this recurring problem other than knowledge. The only way to know the best path forward is to know all routes before deciding, just like Oppenheimer.

With an essential and personal theme and a cast full of potential nominees, Nolan is on the path to cinematic perfection. Unfortunately, old issues raise their head in the name of overindulgence and unique visual/auditory choices. For a film that is three hours long, it is hard to believe that there are multiple dropped or useless plot points. Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt are very talented actresses, and if they had been excised from the script before filming, nothing of consequence would have been lost. They each have a standout moment, but those moments have such little impact on Robert that they are rendered useless beyond the performance. The same can be said for Dylan Arnold, who plays Robert’s younger brother Frank, but he doesn’t even get a chance to stand out. It is clear Nolan believed they were the three most influential people in Robert’s life and must be included. It must also be true that Robert was not much of a father because I am pretty sure the second child is never even named in the film. Nolan’s sense of loyalty and his free reign at Universal are the only reasons the film stretches to its final runtime.

After endless internet complaints about the dialogue quality in “Tenet,” it is great to say that it is never an issue in “Oppenheimer.” The dialogue and the performances are what makes the film special. Visually the film is beautiful, even if Nolan’s frequent visualization of the atomic world borders on obnoxious. It is so frequent in the first act that it worried me about the rest of the film and how much time would be spent showing stylized electron orbits. The unique choices don’t end there, starting with the fact that almost a third of the film, the most modern portion, is in black and white. Maybe it has something to say about the dark days of the nuclear age post WWII or the personal attacks on Oppenheimer, but a clear meaning proved elusive. The most underwhelming element of the film and its promotion was all the build-up about how they were going to recreate the testing of the nuclear bomb practically. Unfortunately, the final product can be best summed up as an artistic interpretation. The most potent weapon of that time was recreated 70 years later and rendered into something that looks like a screensaver from 20 years ago.

“Oppenheimer” is a technically fantastic film, which is no surprise as most of Nolan’s films fall in that category. That brilliance can be awe-inspiring but can come off as cold or elitist. Oddly enough, while the performances are great, they are also strangely cold. Nolan shows people going through the most challenging time of their lives, yet it doesn’t elicit emotion from the audience. It does not hinder or limit the film due to sheer impressiveness. For many, “Oppenheimer” will challenge for the top spot in Nolan’s filmography, but the unnecessary length and disappointing action earns the movie a 4 out of 5 from me.

Rating: R
Genre: History, Drama, Biography
Original Language: English
Director: Christopher Nolan
Producer: Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Release Date: July 21st, 2023
Runtime: 3h 0m
Distributor: Universal Pictures