Oppenheimer

 

As his career progresses, Christopher Nolan has become a less commercial filmmaker. His movies were always serious and highbrow but lately they’ve become intense feats of endurance for all concerned, not least the audience. I don’t mean by that to say they are bad, far from it, just that they require a level of focus most movies do not. You'll soon forget the popcorn, Coming on the back of the mind puzzler that was Tenet in which science and science fiction collided head on, Oppenheimer is a film that takes us into the world of real science. A dense and talky three hour affair containing a lot that the viewer will not understand, this is a film for nuclear physicists and political students more than anyone. At times you'll feel like the Rocket Man who doesn't understand `all the science`. It doesn't matter though because underpinning everything are the ramifications of what happened, ripples we still feel to this very day.

From the very first hints to the initial trailers you could always feel the weight of this film. Christopher Nolan has form here, making Dunkirk an immersive experience that is a wonder of modern cinema. Making the unreal seem so real with Inception. Making us root for an anti hero like Bruce Wayne. So while that weight is that of history  - which potentially Oppenheimer and his project could have stopped in its tracks  - it is also the weight of responsibility he subsequently felt for what he had done. This may not be a popular view but there is an argument that the nuclear deterrent has actually worked. Think of all the aggressive world leaders we’ve had yet none has gone as far as firing their nuclear weapons because they know the consequences. Think too for a moment how all this looked back in 1945.

Nobody had more weight upon him than Oppenheimer himself. Portrayed here in what is presumably a mostly accurate light, he is a difficult person to like considering he carries the narrative. Vain and ambitious, unfaithful to his wife and to some extent his own principles, it is his pursuit of the science that is the most important thing to him. Like a lot of pioneers he has to somehow separate the achievement with what it will mean. Yet there is also a naivety to his behaviour. When the US government realise that it is this brilliance that could give them a means to finish the second world war in a decisive, shocking manner `Oppie`, as he is known by adoring students, is put in charge of a top secret facility to develop the ultimate weapon. A gaggle of scientists are carted off into the desert somewhere where a town is built for them as they work on the first ever atomic bomb.

A film like this cannot exactly surprise you with plot twists of a Tenet variety because we know what happened which makes the first half of the movie an exercise in atmosphere. Nolan’s signature thrumming soundtrack which sometimes explodes into white noise, his non linear storytelling and (especially) sharp editing is all brought into play to emphasise the importance of what is actually a lot of people tinkering with machines and talking physics theory. It reminds me of a time I once I once listened to two physicists arguing passionately about something or other and I had no idea what they were talking about. 

That Nolan pulls this off is not too surprising given how thrilling he made a race across the beach in Dunkirk seem, and the absence of actual action means his IMAX cameras have to make things being lifted and tested or people talking equally as exciting. The run up to the countdown to the first test is given added gravitas by a scene in which it is suggested the event might set off a chain reaction that could destroy the world. Its hard to imagine how tense that would be at that moment but the film’s nervy mood certainly gives us an idea.

Yet we have witnessed the test event and the real bomb is dropped yet there is still quite a while to go which takes us into the lesser known story of what happened afterwards. With the machines gone we are left with rooms of people debating the aftermath of what they achieved. Oppenheimer’s initial reaction is to bask in his success- we see him cheered and clapped wherever he goes while making the sort of statements that people want to hear, like politicians' crowd rousing soundbites. Yet we also visit the nightmare images in his head thrown at us amidst a cacophany of foot stomping in the film's most disturbing scene. Soon his own doubts over being `the modern day Prometheus` grow and he becomes subject to a brutally biased enquiry. Feted when needed, treated poorly when not his is probably the story of many a civilian brought in to help a government in trouble than abandoned later. One scene sees President Truman (an unrecognisable Gary Oldman) calling Oppenheimer a `cry baby` after the latter expressed doubts over American policy. So slowly, surely Oppenheimer loses the favour of the authorities even if nearer the end of his life he gets lots of awards.

Cillian Murphy’s performance is not the show boating Oscar tease you might expect and all the better for it. He certainly deserves that nomination though for offering a real dive into someone who was conflicted, could be unlikeable and contradictory yet also friendly and brilliant at other times. Its as immersive a performance as you’ll see full of nuance and depth. There’s also a juicy role for Robert Downey Jr, free to show just what he can do with his devious businessman Lewis Strauss who leads the witch hunt against Oppenheimer, partly in pursuit of his own political ambition. The actor also deserves an Oscar nomination for this performance.

At three hours I felt the film did seem overlong and overbearing at times. There is certainly some material that feels repetitive in both halves of the movie and too much physics for the likes of me but that's just me. Yet it is also a script that tries to offer different perspectives on the issue and which really seems to get to the nub of the moral issues even if the American government prefers to ignore them (which sounds familiar). 

Nolan keeps the tension ratcheted up to Eleven all the way through- this is not a film that breaks away for frivolous diversions or banter. When you consider it consists mostly of dialogue scenes it calls to mind those old Forties features where characters talked away busily and there is often something traditional lurking in this director's work just behind the very modern storytelling. I don't know if I'd watch it again- it is very intense with a relentless rhythm that is unsettling at times - but if you're up to it you should watch it once if only for the issues it raises.  Oppenheimer is a film making achievement, an account of a monumental moment in history that we have never really come to terms with.