It’s fair to call me a Christopher Nolan hater. I’ve criticized Memento, ripped Tenet, and even disparaged the Batman trilogy. I haven’t written about Interstellar, but I assure you, I’m no fan. On the other hand, I’ve offered reserved praise for Inception and lauded The Prestige, which, in my opinion, had been Nolan’s strongest work.
Until now. Oppenheimer is a tense, complicated tale of science, ethics, and politics. It’s a landmark of Hollywood cinema—the kind of American epic that supposedly doesn’t get made anymore. Stuffed with characters and bursting with contemporary implications, it sustains comparison to its great predecessors: The Social Network (2010) and There Will Be Blood (2007). By a wide margin, it’s Nolan’s masterpiece to date.
As with many of his prior films, Nolan employs nonlinear storytelling in Oppenheimer. But unlike in those prior films, especially Memento and Tenet, the fractured storytelling doesn’t disorient. Rather, it carries crucial thematic significance. In the first storyline, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) leads the successful project to develop and test an atomic bomb. In the second, Oppenheimer’s reputation and influence are sabotaged by shady forces from inside the government. Telling these two halves simultaneously rather than sequentially conveys that the second half was preordained—that Oppenheimer’s rise and fall were intertwined. They comprised a single government endeavor: to use and, by necessity, discard a great mind.
This underscores the cynical vision of Oppenheimer: a vision of administrative power run amok. And the United States government in this film isn’t only greedy and ruthless; it’s petty and egoistic, too. One official plots Oppenheimer’s destruction for embarrassing him in a trivial committee hearing. Harry Truman mocks Oppenheimer for expressing guilt over Hiroshima—not based on ethical disagreement, but because Oppenheimer, in feeling any responsibility at all, has, in the president’s view, overestimated his contribution. In both cases the takeaway is clear: the government will not be upstaged. Not by a great scientist, not even by science itself. Truman’s rebuke to Oppenheimer functions as the United States’ position toward every American citizen: “This isn’t about you.”
I don’t often take time to praise actors, but Cillian Murphy’s performance in this film is something special. Like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Murphy conveys the increasing torment of a would-be hotshot navigating the twisted modern world. His Dr. Oppenheimer, forced to confront the morality of his work, can’t draw firm conclusions, nor can he even explain his own actions. Multiple characters remark on his persuasive abilities, including self-persuasion. So has he been duped? And if so: by others, or by his own self? Murphy’s sensational acting in late scenes animates these impossible reflections. Watching him, we feel the historical genesis of a new state of moral confusion: used as pawns, how can any of us judge the game?
After Tenet, I’ll be honest: I thought Nolan was done. I thought he, like the magicians in The Prestige, had lost his way amidst the pressure to startle and impress. Gimmicks had overtaken his films’ characters, style, and even basic logic. But now I have to revise my view. Because with Oppenheimer, Nolan has vaulted himself into a new sphere. Formerly a mere showman, dependent on dubious slight-of-hand, he has proven himself a legitimate commentator on history, morality, and modern life. This movie must be seen. The best magic trick, after all, is a good story—prepare to be amazed!
–Jim Andersen
For more, see my review of Barbie.