Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan has done it again. He has created a gem that is going to be watched for generations to come.

Oppenheimer is a 3-plus hour biographical thriller about J. Robert Oppenheimer also known as ‘The Father of Atomic Bomb’. It covers his life from his early student days at Cambridge to the political issues he faces after the atomic bombings took place. Unlike many long movies, ‘Oppenheimer’ is pretty fast paced. May it be the length of scenes or its swift dialogues. Nolan keeps the audience on their toes by jumping from one timeline to another. Yes, there are multiple timelines going on at the same time in the film. And you will have to be alert to put the pieces together. But for people who have seen his previous movies, this will not be hard for them. 

The movie tries to cover a lot of things. Even the simplest of the things that you’ve read about go about in a blink of an eye and you realize ‘Oh. Is that how that happened?’. I had read about Louise Alvarez leaving in the middle of his haircut and going to Oppenheimer to give important news. This scene just goes so quickly in the movie and I was so happy to see it. What Oppenheimer does at its best is take us to the era when one of the greatest minds of humanity worked together to create something that changed everything. Above all, that is fascinating enough to see the movie. Especially the Oppenheimer and Einstein conversation mystery that is left till the very end to be revealed is so satisfying.

Sure, the movie is dialogue driven but at its heart are the characters. Murphy plays the role with extreme tenacity and finesse. His glassy blue eyes are used to their full extent in the close-up shots where you can really feel them. We stand beside Oppenheimer for almost the entire movie and feel every emotion he feels. May it be his anxiousness during his young student life, the gulp down the throat during the bomb testing, or the trauma he experiences after the bombings. Cillian never for a second drops the character. I really hope he gets his well-deserved Oscar nomination. To his help is the strong supporting cast which includes RDJ, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, and even Rami Malek (for a relatively small role). RDJ, in my opinion, gives his career-best performance. The stellar cast gives this movie so much depth. The characters are portrayed as people and not cinema heroes. The movie is a depiction for what it is and does not try to show Oppenheimer as a hero or a villain.

I don’t want this review to delve much into the plot of the film or the real-world history that inspired it, not because it isn’t important but because in the case of Nolan, it isn’t much about the story (he has got a strong one in this case though) but more about his storytelling that he does so superbly. It is heaven to just sit in the theatre and listen to “Can you hear the Music?” (a beautiful score by Ludwig Goransson) along with Hoyte van Hoytema’s beautiful cinematography. Editing of the movie from dialogues to abstract moments where we peek into the heart of the atom is beautiful. The visualization of fear, anxiousness, or concepts like fusion make the movie visually stunning.