One of the appeals of Christopher Nolan is the way he embraces genre in ways that are enriching but never patronizing. His approaches to noir (Following, Memento) or science fiction (Inception, Interstellar) or war films (Dunkirk) will always have a unique tick, a telltale sign that the man behind the camera is bringing more than you expect. He can only pull this off because of his deep-seeded love for these genres to begin with. His latest film, Oppenheimer, is a biopic, a genre that has less to do with aesthetic and more to do with prestige (no pun intended). That said, the American biopic has come to develop a form so specific that Nolan gets an opportunity to augment it. Oppenheimer doesn’t avoid the beats that people expect, but Nolan gives us a chance to ponder what these films could look like in more creative hands.
In tackling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan is re-litigating perhaps the greatest moral debate of the Twentieth Century: the creation and utilization of nuclear weapons. Cillian Murphy is cast as Oppenheimer, and the Irish actor pours every ounce of his gaunt severity into the performance, which Nolan shoots almost exclusively in extreme close-up. From the opening moments of the film, both filmmaker and actor lay bare the ethical turmoil inside the notorious theoretical physicist, whose reputation for improvisation and invention could not protect him from the emotional crucible of being the inventor of the atom bomb. Oppenheimer succeeds in its recreation of the past, but it’s also a fascinating projection on the future – chronicling the human race’s folly for self-destruction and filtering it through the biography of one brilliant mind.
This is the kind of stuff that good biopics are supposed to do, and it’s a standard that many fall short of. Nolan’s interest in Oppenheimer seems to have less to do with dissecting World War II than it does with examining the limits of genius. As a student in Cambridge in the 1920s, the American Oppenheimer struggled under the demanding tutelage of Patrick Blackett (James D’Arcy). When he meets the groundbreaking Danish scientist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), he’s influenced to pursue his true passion: theory. Alongside Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), he begins researching quantum mechanics and teaching classes at Berkeley. It’s at this point that his connections to the Communist Party begin to arise. He never fully commits, but his brother, Frank (Dylan Arnold) is a card-holding member, along with other friends.
He steers clear of anything official but his brushes with radical left politics – including his encouragement of unionization amongst Berkeley adjuncts – keeps him on the radar of a government already in the throes of a red scare. So it is with some trepidation that he’s approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), a blunt war hawk who invites Oppenheimer to head the Manhattan Project. There are many who believe Oppenheimer’s communist ties should prevent him from gaining the security clearance necessary for the job, but with rumors that Hitler is on the path of building his own nuclear weapon, Groves and the Army at large relinquish control, allowing the physicist free reign to form the team necessary for such a monumental undertaking. With the full power of the US government behind him, Oppenheimer builds an entire city in the desert of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and fills it with the brightest minds he can find.
As a Jewish man himself, and a friend to many German Jews whom he met in his studies overseas, defeating the Nazis takes on a personal note for Oppenheimer. This blinds him to the ethical dilemma that discouraged other high-profile scientists, like the already legendary Albert Einstein (Tom Conti). Nolan crosscuts this entire saga with a 1954 board meeting where the US military attempts to revoke the same security clearance from Oppenheimer that they willingly gave during World War II. We also catch glimpses of the 1959 cabinet hearing of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission whose bid for Secretary of Commerce is rattled by his involvement in that revoking. In classic Nolan fashion, the parallel stories are sometimes difficult to parse before we get to the larger picture in the film’s sweeping conclusion.
The back-and-forth nature of the narrative, and the switching from color to black-and-white creates the manic energy of Oliver Stone’s JFK, while the whirlwind subjectivity of the camera gave me glimpses of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. All these films, brilliant in their own ways, tell stories (fictional or not) of America’s downfall through its dependence on vainglorious men. Nolan has never been a political director and Oppenheimer is not an explicitly political film, though its frequent references to unions in a time when Hollywood is halted by strikes from the WGA and SAG does not go unnoticed. Instead, Nolan draws the line between Oppenheimer’s personal politics (nebulous as they were) and their place toward altering not only his life but some of the most consequential moments of American history.
His relationships with women were mostly dishonest, littered with betrayals. An affair with an emotionally unstable physicist named Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) ended when she committed suicide at the age of 29. He pursued his eventual wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), while she was married to another man. They stayed together but his commitment to work (and lack of commitment to her) led to her alcoholism. Nolan’s script does not give these women roles of legitimate substance. They are mostly projections of Oppenheimer’s desires and regrets. That said, Blunt and Pugh deserve full credit for delivering two tremendous performances, making a statement within a male-dominated film about a male-dominated world.
Perhaps Nolan overstates Oppenheimer’s professional downfall (such as it was) for dramatic purposes, but if he does it’s only to reinstate America’s obsession with creating heroes out of imperfect men. The film’s first half, filled with pensive meanderings about groundbreaking scientific theory can drag, and not truly understanding the historical context of the flash forwards (or even really knowing whether or not they are flash forwards) doesn’t help. In this regard, a subsequent viewing might go a long way. It’s the film’s second half – where Nolan pulls off his atom bomb explosion and follows it with an hour of Sorkin-ian cross-examination – where the propulsion so common in his films comes through. Rolling downhill, Oppenheimer‘s ending reaches stunning heights (aided by Ludwig Goransson’s swelling score) before shuttering on a quiet, sobering note.
The argument for Oppenheimer‘s importance has been heavy and almost immediate since its announcement in 2021. Nolan is one of the few superstar directors in the world. Three-hour movies that feature no legitimate action sequences and speak to the grave sins of American empire don’t usually find the commercial success that this film will ultimately have. A good chunk of the money that this movie will make will come from the infamous “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, but to the degree that Oppenheimer is riding Barbie‘s commercial coattails (it should be stated that Barbie‘s director, Greta Gerwig, is also one of the few director stars), it’s still the name of Nolan that puts it in that position to begin with. Once you see the film, it argues for itself. Hollywood is facing one of its largest existential crises to date, but Oppenheimer is proof that the studios can still deliver a prestige epic that challenges, entertains, and more than anything else, enlightens the audience about itself and its history.
Written for the Screen and Directed by Christopher Nolan