Review of Oppenheimer, directed by Christoper Nolan

There were so many opportunities to see Oppenheimer before I actually ended up going to see it, but I don’t know what feeling was coming over me when it came to procrastinating on this one. I don’t care for Christopher Nolan films if we’re being honest, so I didn’t fall into the hype of that or Barbie when the marketing and TikTok people were relentlessly pushing these movies onto us.

I saw Oppenheimer because I love history, especially World War II, and I was curious as to how Nolan was going to interpret an entire massive biography into one three hour movie.

I almost saw this in New York, but was disheartened when I couldn’t get into the film IMAX screenings they’re having over at Lincoln Center. I ended up seeing this as soon as my time in New York was up and I was back home, as I couldn’t fathom spending three hours of my vacation slash work trip going to see this.

And I will say, an IMAX screening at 10:30 AM in suburbia was quite nice, as the theater was barely filled. I had the entire row to myself, which is what I prefer when it comes to these kinds of movies.

Onwards with the review!

The story of Robert J. Oppenheimer’s rise and fall.

I feel it’s important to mention that I was already quite familiar with Oppenheimer’s story before going into this movie, as I spent a stupid insane amount of time reading more academic history focused books on the atomic age starting from the Curies.

Which means I think I come into this movie with a very specific perspective, as I had my doubts going in on how this was going to be an America focused biopic. And it is because it’s grounded in Oppenheimer’s perspective.

While at Los Alamos, he initially drinks the Kool Aid that says we need to bomb Japan to end the war. He didn’t know any better.

Anyways, this movie is split into two timelines woven together. The one timeline, which is largely in black and white, has Robert Downey Jr. portraying Lewis Strauss in 1959 as he ends up trying to get a position as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

We learn throughout the movie that was Strauss is saying throughout this is a warped version of what the movie presents as the truth; he essentially set Oppenheimer up to lose his job and position due to the fact his beliefs conflicted with Strauss, who believed that we needed to use the hydrogen bomb on the Soviet Union if the time came for it.

The other timeline begins with Oppenheimer’s academic journey. He begins in London, where he struggles every night with the content he’s going over. He then goes to Germany after an encounter with Bohr, who gives him some advice.

Oppenheimer, after getting his PhD, ends up landing a position at UC Berkeley to teach quantum mechanics, which is a completely new concept in the US at the time. As he gets sucked into the world of the Communist Party through his brother and love interest, he helps ending up creating attempts for labor unions for the grad students, which puts him in uh oh territory.

But when the war starts and a secret project comes his way, his political affiliations and leanings prove no matter when he meets the General Leslie Groves. He convinces Groves to put him in charge of the Los Alamos project, they recruit scientists, and the rest of the movie is them working on the bomb.

It’s a gradual build up with drama between scientists, government security policies, and Oppenheimer’s former lover from Berkeley commits suicide, but it ends up happening eventually.

Oppenheimer begins to have guilt for what he made in this film after seeing the impacts of the bomb on the Japanese, and he becomes a pacifist of sorts. This puts him at odds with Strauss in the future, who is consumed by power and climbing up the social ladder.

Oppenheimer believes that there are good in people, refusing to believe there’s a spy in Los Alamos all those years, and insists on maintaining a public image. That’s a threat to Strauss, especially after Oppenheimer mocks him in public once while he’s sitting right there.

As we learn, Oppenheimer is set up by Strauss, who gives away his government security file to write a report in the McCarthy era detailing the concern over him being involved with nuclear energy.

Oppenheimer loses his job and lives in obscurity, but in the future timeline, we see how Strauss screwed himself over. The scientific community was outraged by what he did to Oppenheimer, and a man that Oppenheimer treated poorly early on in the movie provides a critical testimony that Oppenheimer was set up by Strauss, which was why he ends up not being confirmed.

The film ends with a conversation Strauss misinterpreted earlier on in the movie.

When Einstein and Oppenheimer meet on the lake years later, Einstein tells him about how he will have to live with this guilt for the rest of his life. The people will only be around him basically for their own benefit, and when it doesn’t benefit them, they will leave him behind.

Overall Thoughts

A stunning movie, but I thought it needed to be trimmed. The Strauss trial ran a bit unnecessary at time, as I thought that it created a gotcha moment later on when we realize he’s full of shit, but after Oppenheimer successfully watches the bomb go off, I felt that the movie began to lose steam.

I was getting tired and sucked out of the world it creates at that point, and I will mention I was enraptured with the content on the screen up until them. I think it’s a somewhat historically accurate representation, but Nolan surely takes the liberties to take creativity when it comes to amping up the drama and certain conversations when he feels it’s needed.

I’m glad I saw it in theaters, though, as this is a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen.

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