Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Based on American Prometheus by Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
Starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh,.Alden Ehrenreich,. David Krumholtz

My knowledge of J. Robert Oppenheimer had been relegated to an understanding of his role leading the Manhattan Project and the reference in Sting’s song, Russians, Not a wealth of knowledge, to be sure. For me, the decision to unleash the weapon he helped to create had always been that of Truman. Even with his lack of foreknowledge to the project, the President inherited the weight of that world changing decision when his predecessor Roosevelt died in office, sheilding him from it’s burden.

That said, one could not think of a better person to navigate the complexity of Oppenheimer’s rise and fall than Christopher Nolan. He and lead Cillian Murphy bring a wealth of depth and feeling through different lenses, sounds and expressions of all involved. There is no lack of consideration for any dimension of tne story of the complex man who ushered in the new world within whose shadow we all reside.

Like most Nolan stories, Oppenheimer takes place in many different timelines. We see him in his early years at school, the years as a college professor, time dabbling with the American Communist groups, the years leading the project, and his “non-trial” where he fights to maintain his security clearance. Weaved throughout, we have the Senate confirmation hearings for Secratary of Commerce nominee Lewis Strauss (Downey, Jr.), who had hired Oppenheimer as director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton after the end of WWII.

The hearings take place in black and white, a clear distinction from the rest of the film. This is a careful choice that holds the crux of the story. The structure of the rest of Oppenheimer is centered around the hearings, which obviously mean everything to Strauss. This is cleverly revealed in the climax of the film, which does not center at all around what most viewers might think it should.

The supporting cast is as strong as any film in decades. How Nolan procures so much acting talent to play so many small parts only adds to the strength of the story being told here. No one is grandstanding. They are all just humans here, working towards the most powerful creation of human kind. There are as many opinions about it as persons involved. There is no monopoly on the truth of what’s been created.

There is a clever intersection of ideals in Oppenheimer. The competion with the fascism of Germany and their mistreatment of the Jewish people, along with the cross of professors who had Communist leanings clash with those who are more pro-American Democratic Republic. It weighs heavily on who is selected for the project. And it also has an influence on who is protected afterword.

All of these complex ideas are mismashed into a three hour runtime that holds your attention, even when most of what we see are talking heads throwing plot points around back and forth through different times. Nolan never loses the attention of the viewer. We may not understand the difference between atomic or hydrogen, fission or fusion, beyond what we learned in school. We have no problem discerning the divide between schools of thought that exist in the project and pervade after Trinity proves a success.

This film will no doubt contend for several year end awards. It’s clear that Murphy will rake in the nomninations as lead actor. Downey Jr. is almost a shoo in for Supporting actor. Blunt has never been better. Also notable are Ehrenreich, Krumholtz and Hartnett in smaller, but no less significant roles.

The script and editing are top notch. The trap door of this story is cleverly concealed until the magnificent third act. That Nolan hides it so cleverly while still being able to express the bigger, obvious messasge of Oppenheimer’s horror of what he’d helped to create is a minor miracle. Everyone knows this creation and its subsequent use is a nightmare that could still cost us the world. What was debatable then is debatable now: should it have been used. It’s not a puzzle to be solved.

Instead Nolan moves smaller chess pieces in plain site, until the viewer is caught in a gambit, like the erstwhile kingmaker Strauss is as surprised as anyone by the result. It’s a checkmate of science over politics which we never seem to see anymore, with the domination of hack beaurocrats pushing climate and vaxxine agendas as government mandated “settled science.”

So if this is a victory, it is a small one. It’s a ray of hope in the shadow within which the power resides.

(***** oiut of *****)