“Oppenheimer”, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, feels like a buffet display showcasing all Nolan’s skills acquired during his previous films, but the story does not always achieve its intent.
The IMAX®-shot epic thriller thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.
The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin.
“Oppenheimer” stars Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Matt Damon also appears, as General Leslie Groves Jr, the director of the Manhattan Project. Robert Downey Jr plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission.
The film is difficult to distil as it has a 3-hour runtime and tells an intricate story, delving into the nuances and complex mind of J Robert Oppenheimer.
He was an American theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often credited as the “father of the atomic bomb”.
Nolan’s film is a mammoth and intriguing story that delves into Oppenheimer’s role in the creation of the atomic bomb and how the ramifications of that rippled across his life.
The film’s story is sprawling and has numerous famous actors appearing in short but meaningful roles, while retaining its focus on the titular subject and keeping the story coherent, that is, as coherent as Nolan can get.
Much like the style the director is known for, the film keeps his non-linear/non-chronological storytelling technique, but the film manages not to get too muddled or confusing for viewers to follow.
Part of what helps keep viewers entertained is how the director incorporates black and white in contrast to colour.
Here’s why Christopher Nolan cuts between sequences of color and black & white in Oppenheimer. https://t.co/jSBsygRp6r
Thankfully, its narrative purpose does not make it convoluted for those intent to not unpack the deeply layered film beyond what is necessary for viewers to know.
There is a lot of nuance and intricacy around “Oppenheimer” in that many on social media have rightfully critiqued the film.
One Twitter user, @MediaversityRev, critiqued the film for being “yet another movie about tortured white male genius when the victims of the atrocities glossed over by the script”.
People seem to love #Oppenheimer but I'll just say it: I was uncomfy watching yet another movie about tortured white male genius when the victims of the atrocities glossed over by the script—Japanese people, interned Japanese Americans, and Native Americans—had no voice.
— Li Lai 賴立萍 (@MediaversityRev) July 19, 2023
That being said, the nuance to this is that while a horrific injustice was done to the Japanese, history itself has shown us that the Japanese themselves have been perpetrators of gruesome violence inflicted on Korea and other neighbouring regions.
However, getting back to “Oppenheimer”, it doesn’t negate the violence inflicted on the Japanese citizens through the use of the atomic bomb, a method that has not been carried out again since the attack on Japan.
Nolan does an impressive job in his visual depiction of its impact on Oppenheimer, which is understandable given that he is the subject of the film, but the movie does a huge disservice to highlighting the pain and horror the Japanese endured.
Thankfully, though, we do not see Asian bodies blown up on screen but there are ways to visually articulate the horrors and do it justice.
“Oppenheimer” does highlight the violence and manages to pull of this depiction in a smart manner, but the method feels like it undercuts its intent in how it does this.
Real life history itself is also a lot messier. A journalist has highlighted how the “Los Alamos Laboratory” has been a point of violence and trauma for how it displaced Hispanos of New Mexico.
This quote, from the @nytimes review of the OPPENHEIMER film: "He served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near-desolate stretch of Los Alamos, in New Mexico"...
— Alisa Lynn Valdés, M.S. (@AlisaValdesRod1) July 20, 2023
It was inhabited by Hispanos. They were given less than 24 hr to leave. Their farms bulldozed. 1
“Oppenheimer” is a near perfect film of an imperfect and divisive history that causef pain, and portrays a slice of what is a big and messy story.
Nolan deserves credit as he does do a great job of bringing a film to the screen that audiences may know little about, and does so in a fresh and unique way.
While its subject may not resonate for all and while some may find little to marvel over, it has brought other voices and perspectives to a conversation.
In doing so, while many will learn of Oppenheimer, hopefully so too will others learn of the real life history and stories that emanate from this particularly point in history.
Rating: 8.5/10
“Oppenheimer” is playing in cinemas nationwide.