Oppenheimer (2023)

Commendably rising above biopic banality and staying true to trademark nonlinearity tendencies, Writer/Director Christopher Nolan is only missing Hans Zimmer and an intermission. By alternating between black-and-white objective and the subjective in color, we experience a JFK-like injunction in which viewer interpretation is just as captivating as the controversial focus. In this case, we’re talking about “the father of the atomic bomb” and all the morally grey implications that come with that responsibility.

An emotional core is occasionally swallowed by the obligatory exposition, but this is a movie that celebrates the scholarly, and if you’re not a big thinker, Oppenheimer is a chance for you to sit back and watch the sparks fly—literally and figuratively speaking.   

Disjointed timescapes are less gimmicky than in Inception and Tenant because we have a focal character too dynamic to be a puppet to the screenplay. Cillian Murphy’s role as J. Robert Oppenheimer is impeccable and fully fleshed out from the early 20s to the late 50s. However, the performance that blows your mind more than the bomb itself is Robert Downey Jr. as activist/naval officer, Lewis Strauss.

Robert takes a laser to the scalpel on precision acting, seamlessly transforming into the “Salieri” of the world of physics. He is stunningly fluid, adhering a facial expression, wrinkle, and cough to everything that could never be included in a screenplay.

Oppenheimer’s primary weakness is found in Ludwig Göransson’s score. Instead of complementing Nolan’s vision, Göransson invades it with loud filler. Nothing is inspired—just the noise of a kid fiddling at the synthesizer, arbitrarily adding tumult to scenes that require subtlety. Hans, your ability to stir thunder with context and wonderous motif with character is sorely missed. Your kinship with Christopher Nolan is missed even more.

Along with the distracting noise in the foreground, Oppenheimer is much too long. Lincoln got a movie, and Spielberg wisely kept it at 150 minutes. Those extra 30 minutes overstay their welcome, and the lull is felt in the middle.

Yet, in hindsight, I continue to feel like I experienced a movie, not a biopic, not a documentary, and not a book. This is the highest compliment of them all when you can now view a movie in a packed, air-conditioned theatre on a hot summer evening. Oppenheimer works, Christopher Nolan doesn’t get in his own way, and Robert Downey Jr. deserves the most praise.

**** out of *****