At this point, a Christopher Nolan film is an event. The director has reached rarefied air. He’s an auteur. There’s only a handful of filmmakers recognizable by simply their last names. You see a Nolan film with an idea of what precisely that entails. So, when Nolan announced Oppenheimer… I was ready. Nolan is, of course, Nolan. However, watching the filmmaker tackle a poignant mid-20th-century biopic? Even better. Will Oppenheimer spark with audiences? Or (this pun is oddly workable two weeks in a row) will it self-destruct in the box office? Read on.
Oppenheimer tells J. Robert Oppenheimer‘s life story. Best known to most as “The Father of the Atom Bomb,” contemporary culture shows his life to be shrouded behind the A-Bomb and everything the weapon stands for in our world today. The movie, of course, tackles these ideas but doesn’t shy away from examining the complex man behind the image. Oppenheimer was more than simply his wartime work. The movie features an all-star cast, including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Kenneth Branagh, David Krumholtz, Josh Hartnett, Florence Pugh and lots more. Christopher Nolan directs Oppenheimer from his own script.
Let’s start right from the top with Oppenheimer himself. Cillian Murphy has long been a powerful member of Nolan’s troupe. As the prickly scientist, however, he steps in front of this picture with a subtle yet commanding performance. It’s a full-bodied, energy-harnessing portrayal. He becomes every inch Oppenheimer while virtually losing himself in the role. I’m going to say this now. Look for Murphy to be a front-runner as awards season rolls around. Few have been, or likely will be, better than this complex and layered performance.
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At the same time, though, Murphy isn’t alone in a cast that is packed to the gills. This is Nolan’s “Cameo: The Movie.” Every “Supporting Actor” viewers have enjoyed at some point is here. The roles aren’t always huge; however, they’re fascinating to watch. David Krumholtz reminds us how much of a delight he is. I, for one, was thrilled to see Michael Angarano pop up in a small but familiar part. Dane DeHaan! So many of these actors need to be on my screens more. David Dastmalchian, Jack Quaid and even Benny Safdie all appear in small but memorable roles. Clearly, everyone wants to work with Christopher Nolan, as there are many more impressive performances I can’t even mention here.
Meanwhile, an oft-typical Nolan problem does rear its ugly head when examining the movie’s two primary female characters. Emily Blunt dominates as Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, while Pugh is fascinatingly under-utilized as Jean Tatlock.
Nolan hones in on what makes these two women fascinating, and the actresses absolutely smash the portrayals. The problem is we’re really only treated to tantalizing snippets of stories that could be full movies in their own right.
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Emily Blunt brings Kitty to life with painful clarity. We watch this woman struggling under the weight of being a woman with a brain in the pre Feminine Mystique era. She’s a biologist and botanist who, prior to meeting Oppenheimer, traveled and worked for the communist party. So, as she finds herself a wife and mother living in the shadow of her husband, she’s trapped. She’s struggling. She’s not maternal, and she knows it. Blunt brings all this to life. However, every time the narrative comes close to really examining her in her own right, it pulls back.
Meanwhile, Pugh is her usual brilliant self as Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer’s “Other Woman.” We’re introduced to Jean as an intelligent, vivacious, passionate young woman. However, we only see a snippet of this fascinating figure. Just look at her Wikipedia.
In fact, it is in working with Jean as a character that the film first begins to strain against the metaphorical bit. In a “blink and you miss it” moment, Oppenheimer makes a fascinating assertion about Tatlock’s untimely passing. However, it quite literally is a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. The film is playing in a bit of conspiracy theory, but it’s most definitely there. Though, it is only in one scene and is never entirely built up anywhere else in the film. The thread is left to painfully (yet tantalizingly) dangle.
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Nolan is fascinated by Oppenheimer as a man and is excited to shove everything he can into this beastly epic of a movie. It’s three bladder-busting hours. However (and you rarely see me write this), as the film currently exists, 180 minutes didn’t feel long enough. Could this have been five hours? Could we have had Oppenheimer Part Two? Yes. Not only is there more than enough narrative, but there were certainly moments that could have benefited from more development.
This struggle is perhaps most noticeable towards the tail end of act two. As the atom bomb is tested and history takes shape, the film shifts. The final hour descends into an examination of the post-war era, the climate surrounding the oncoming “Blacklist,” and just how fast culture can turn on someone once so loved.
While I found myself completely sucked into the Los Alamos sequence, the film’s transition into the final act examination of the post-war environment is a slog for much of the final hour. It builds to some of the best Robert Downey Jr. acting we’ve seen in more than a decade, so it is, of course, worth it. However, it comes after an atom bomb sequence that could have ended the film on a truly staggering and powerful note.
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Overall, though, Oppenheimer is fully and completely a Nolan film. He’s one of our 21st-century auteurs, and he’s working at peak form here. His shooting is, at points, searing and poetic. His use of non-diegetic imagery serves not only to ensure we’re dropped squarely into Oppenheimer’s shoes but also to snap viewers out of the most basic world of the film. This is more than a biopic; it’s a meditation. It’s an examination. Nolan is clearly fascinated with Oppenheimer’s interiority, and the result is a breathtaking work of storytelling.
When all is said and done, Oppenheimer is ultimately best described as an embarrassment of riches. A brilliant cast basks in the poetic direction. However, even at three hours, Oppenheimer struggles to bring everything home. It tackles this story on an epic scale, but Christopher Nolan has seemingly reached the boundaries of the film form. This is an epic that could have been much bigger. Just digest that and check it out.
Oppenheimer opens in theaters around the country on June 21, 2023.
This article was originally published on 7/20/23.
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