Directed by:
Christopher NolanScreenplay:
Christopher NolanCinematography:
Hoyte van HoytemaComposer:
Ludwig GöranssonCast:
Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti, Benny Safdie (more)Plots(1)
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. (Universal Pictures US)
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Reviews (19)
I went to the cinema thinking that Christopher Nolan wouldn't make just a biopic. Well, it's basically a biopic for at least the first hour and a half. A bit more playful in terms of working with time planes, but above all, it's audiovisually imaginative and engaging in a way that all those academy-praised films like The Theory of Everything have little chance of capturing my attention anymore. Moreover, Nolan switches gears a little bit in the middle and starts to play a lot more with individual plot lines as well as genres, so that after the more daringly conceived biopic (which looks great in IMAX), Oppenheimer turns into a horror film at times, a psychological drama at others, and isn't afraid to be a courtroom thriller that even Aaron Sorkin would applaud. It's a bit of a shame that Nolan doesn't have more faith in his audience and always ends regurgitating what might seem a bit complex for the unfocused into a few sentences. I'd certainly have liked it if he'd pushed the line about the responsibility of scientists more and generally gone more in depth with the main character himself, but those are just small things. I was entertained by Oppenheimer for the entire three hours, whether Nolan was playing with image, sound, pacing and genres, or sticking to more traditional storytelling techniques, and just spicing them heavily with his audiovisual mastery.
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The long wait for another Nolan film was broken by the biographical story of Robert Oppenheimer, the man behind the atomic bomb. Yes, the subject matter is undeniably strong, but 180 minutes? Not so much. In typical Nolan fashion, he doesn't make it easy for the viewer, intertwining three timelines right from the start. If you're not familiar with the basics of Oppenheimer's life, good luck keeping up. The film is heavy on dialogue – a lot of talking, and not the gripping kind. This is especially apparent whenever Albert Einstein appears on screen; those moments steal the show and offer the best dialogue the film has to offer. It's a movie about a monumental scientific advancement, one that's essential for human progress but also one we might not deserve. It also highlights American arrogance and hints at what the Russians did afterwards – but let's not even go there.
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The creator of this device will be weighed down by his conscience, whether he is the destroyer of worlds or their savior. Let’s compare the escalating drama of the Trinity test culminating in deafening silence with the famous quote read in Sanskrit during a non-nuclear fusion with Florence Pugh, or naked bodies in chairs and imagination, and let’s consider what the author is truly good at and where the artistic arrangement feels of dubious value. In the respectful sense, it’s an opulent commissionary martyrdom, but it offers fewer truly exceptional moments than there are appearances of the god born in Ulm on a pulley. Nolan has the skills to craft a technically perfect bomb, but perhaps he should entrust the design to someone else.
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Nolan made a bold move when, after Tenet flopped because of the coronavirus pandemic, he spectacularly cut his long-standing ties with Warner Bros. and played a game of “Do You Want Me?” with other studios. Universal can thus now call Nolan “my darling”. All the studio had to do was fork over the money for a project that doesn’t fit into the currently preferred pigeonholes of Hollywood production. Oppenheimer is thus interesting as a marketing challenge. The first steps led through the elevation of the project itself to the high-concept tagline “Nolan makes an atomic bomb”. Subsequently, the elevation of analogue was brought into the mix, which, in combination with the detonation of the bomb, helped to evoke the impression of an event. Finally, the phrase “70 mm IMAX” helped to complete the suggestion that a three-hour biopic about a theoretical quantum physicist would be an epic spectacle. The most remarkable thing about this is the fact that the premium projection format is employed not for a visually bombastic spectacle, where it would be obviously justified, but for a dialogue film that is mostly composed of shots of actors in suits or uniforms delivering their lines. On the other hand, the myth of 70 mm film stock previously was used in the exact same way to promote Tarantino’s interior dialogue-heavy The Hateful Eight. Even more than in the case of Tarantino’s film, this time the PR spin doctors managed to create the impression that for every film fan a visit to an IMAX cinema is the equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a commendable approach in the interest of achieving a return on the funding invested in Oppenheimer and securing future Nolan projects. Despite the whole PR circus, however, I will venture to say that we don’t need the biggest screen to fully appreciate this film. Excellent sound, yes, but not IMAX. Oppenheimer will not rivet viewers to their seats with the spectacle of its scenes. However, it does offer excellent screenwriting that brilliantly holds the viewer’s attention and succeeds in clearly and thoroughly examining the title character. I write that as someone who has trouble remembering names, so a lot of films with numerous characters don’t work for me, because I easily get lost in them. That is not the case with Nolan’s Oppenheimer, because of how it is told, or rather how it layers not only the timelines, but also the images and sound. It’s as if Nolan has gone back to his roots, when he didn’t have huge budgets and captivated audiences solely with the power of the ingeniously composed narrative in Memento. Except that, unlike his youthfully ambitious hit, the non-linearity in Oppenheimer doesn’t come across as a gimmick. With an unpretentious purposefulness refined over the years, it makes it possible to dissect and, in a way that is fascinating for viewers, piece back together the disparate roles that Robert Oppenheimer played in his life, as well as the professional, personal and moral questions tied to his personality, work and position in the context of major historical events. Thanks to the film’s structure, which constantly places details aside in favour of the bigger picture and distances the context and point of view from the dramatic appeal of the moment, Nolan’s portrait succeeds in avoiding the minefields of poster glorification, tabloid scandal and philosophical ponderousness. Not by dispensing with them, but by constantly bombarding them with particles of other points of view. In Oppenheimer, the standard phrase “complex portrait” is an uncompromising maxim.
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A focused Nolan, a perfect Cillian Murphy and a roaring Ludwig Göransson in a history lesson I've always wanted to see. The suffocating atmosphere, disturbed only by the celebration of the Trinity explosion, sticks to the palate, and at times you feel sick of what could have been. If Hitler hadn't shot himself, they would have dropped the nukes in Europe. Oppenheimer's life of communism, his wives, his nightmares, his friends and his enemies are all engulfing, and for three hours they don't let go, whether it's black and white conversations or the simulation of a nuclear explosion. The horrific ending with Einstein still resonates with me. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
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