Oppenheimer

Many people my age first learned about J. Robert  Oppenheimer from a song by Sting called "Russians".  This includes writer/director Christopher Nolan, whose current film OPPENHEIMER is the realization of a long held pet project.  Not to boast, but I had known about Oppenheimer from school studies dating back to at least junior high school.  See? Public school (in the '80s at least) was good for something.  Perhaps other teens from that era were prompted to learn about this figure from a song by Rush called 'The Manhattan Project".  World War II has and continues to provide ample material for artists to mine, and to some was the United States' finest hour.  J. Robert, dubbed the "father of the atomic bomb", probably disagreed.

As director of said project, the first in which nuclear weapons would be created, the mild mannered but driven physicist (Cillian Murphy) would have to learn to play the games of politics and intel gathering, quite unaware that a Soviet had infiltrated his team.  Concerns of a potential arms race loomed heavily.  There was urgency in the creation of the bomb before the Germans or the Russians.  The top secret  Manhattan Project was spearheaded by Army General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), who had to be convinced that Oppenheimer's associations with former and present Communists - which included his wife Katherine (Emily Blunt) and lover Jean (Florence Pugh) - would not compromise the directive.  Much of Nolan's film takes place during hearings and tribunals in which red loyalty (and national security) is questioned.  

After the Project's successful dry run of its deadly toy in the New Mexico desert, President Truman (Gary Oldman) orders Oppenheimer's creation to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ensuring Japan's surrender.  OPPENHEIMER does not show this event or its terrible aftermath, which has drawn criticism from some.  There is a separate movie to cover that.  Nolan rather has created a sort-of biopic and generally true pastiche of history.  A non linear essay with breathless editing (by Jennifer Lame), shifts to black and white, and a relentless score by Ludwig Goransson that at times is comically intense.  During a climactic testimony at "Oppy"'s security hearing, the violins shriek to the point of carotid artery burst.  Nolan again employs an interesting and stress inducing sound design that mirrors the story's anxiousness.  I have to laugh out loud at one Letterboxd review: 

"Now I have become deaf, destroyer of ears." 

Many of the director's indulgences/weaknesses, which also include muddled dialogue, lapses into melodrama, a penchant for overstatement, and a general air of disorientation are noted but not entirely detrimental to the film. 

Blunt is underused.  Her dialogue in her first scene sounds more like literary criticism of her character than real words.  She does have a few good moments in the final half hour of this three hour movie.  Robert Downey Jr., who portrays Lewis Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission is most excellent, very convincingly playing a much older looking fifty-something.  As Oppenheimer, Murphy is appropriately solemn, a very controlled performance.  Other familiar faces in the cast: Casey Affleck, Matthew Modine, Josh Hartnett, Jason Clarke, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh as Neils Bohr and Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, especially key in the final scene. 

Nolan again proves how much better a director than a writer he is.  The screenplay is a bit disorganized and underdeveloped.  The more I think on this film, the more deficiencies I find.  But despite it being essentially an actors' chamber piece, its sheer audaciousness of scope, its hugeness (especially in 70mm IMAX, which I recommend seeing this in if you can score a ticket) more than compensates. Christopher Nolan is one of the few filmmakers left who steadfastly rejects digital photography and CGI, and his films have an old school texture that recall what cinema should be.  Even if the technical achievements outweigh the content at times, much is forgiven.