Oppenheimer (2023)

Review: written August 2023

Fascinating and frustrating, flawed biopic of a flawed man

Christopher Nolan’s latest is a fascinating and intricate a piece of work - as we have come to expect from him. Oppenheimer’s story as told by Nolan is the story of a flawed man – a womaniser whose sympathies with communists persistently gave people in government a reason to be distrustful or impetus to push him from the limelight, when his views on pacifism became unpopular. This political intrigue section of the movie forms the framework on which the movie hangs, rather than the development of the bomb itself.

It does also include that story of the bomb, told almost like a thriller – watching the team assemble on the Manhattan Project with the clock ticking – can they get the scientific breakthrough they need in time to stop the war? It’s a ‘men-on-a-mission’ movie within the context of a biopic.

And then it’s also a movie about that man wrestling his demons. “Have I become destroyer of worlds?” is the recurring motif, as the scientific drive to succeed gives way to the ‘what will happen with what I created” uncertainty. The political courtroom drama, the scientific thriller and the psychological drama.. all enthralling subject matters – but it’s questionable whether they all truly complement each other. I would suggest they compete for attention, especially with the frequency of shifting between the time zones of the respective stories, meaning that I got a wonderful flavour of each, but ultimately each was somewhat short changed.

That said, Cillian Murphy is stroke of genius casting, and vividly brings Oppenheimer to life in all of his complexity. The supporting cast is equally as memorable – Robert Downey is almost unrecognisable, in an atypical but riveting award-worthy performance as the ambitious politician and scientist who is a key player in Oppenheimer’s career. And he and the other actors all get their moments to shine.

It's an intimate story, shown in IMAX frames and with a soundtrack which bombards with layered sound – grand in cinematic scope, and yet memorable more for the close ups and facial reactions (or lack thereof) than of the vistas or shattering reconstruction of the bomb testing. The movie left me with a profound sense of the man – while also leaving me feeling short changed on the details or timeline of what happened. But while it left me feeling wanting in the facts department , you have to acknowledge that the movie gets under the skin of its subject in a way few biopics do. An incredibly ambitious movie which does almost all it sets out to do – I admire it immensely. Equally, I felt the scope of the subject matter left important elements short changed. I don’t have a problem with a long movie, but it has to be gripping and rewarding. And as rewarding as this was as a cinema experience, it’s not my favourite of Nolan’s works.