Despite the ridiculous hype surrounding it, Oppenheimer manages to live up to the highest expectation, providing a meticulously crafted work of cinema that intricately weaves between scenes of tension, romance, politics, and scientific ingenuity. This is Nolan’s first film written from a first-person perspective, and one that provided me with a foggy and enigmatic understanding of its protagonist by the end of it. Nolan describes Oppenheimer as “the most ambiguous and paradoxical” character he has dealt with yet, felt through his growingly cold and distant demeanour throughout the film; his guilty conscience plastered all over his face. The extent of Oppenheimer’s regret for his creation is unknown, providing an incredibly compelling character brought to life by a masterclass in acting from Cillian Murphy.
Nolan wanted “to give people the experience of what it would have been like to be Oppenheimer in those moments.”
The film is stunning from a visual standpoint, with every shot being filmed in such excruciating detail that nothing it does feels accidental. The movie switches between full colour and black-and-white scenes, the former being those told from Oppenheimer’s perspective and the latter serving as a third person-view into conversations. Every moment is further bolstered by the movie’s star-studded cast, with stand-out performances from Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Emily Blunt to name just a few. It would be a disservice to the film for me to not also mention the Trinity Test scene, completed entirely with practical effects. The explosion is in equal parts terrifying and mesmerising, with a buildup so tense that it feels like time itself has stopped when that grand moment finally arrives.
A meticulously crafted work of cinema that intricately weaves between scenes of tension, romance, politics, and scientific ingenuity
Nolan brings Ludwig Göransson back on board for the film’s soundtrack after their previous collaboration on Tenet, and the composer delivers yet again with a strikingly atmospheric soundtrack that at times feels epic and triumphant, but is constantly and increasingly overpowered by the unbearable weight of the Manhattan Project’s catastrophic consequences for the future of humanity. Göransson provides a vivid soundscape containing just as much hope as it does fear and tension, reflecting the state of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s mind as these thoughts clash together and unravel into reality on our screens.
While Nolan was wrapping up production on Tenet back in 2020, actor Robert Pattinson gifted him a book containing some of Oppenheimer’s speeches. He was fascinated by how they showed the scientist “wrestling with the implications and the consequences of what’s happened,” and said he wanted “to give people the experience of what it would have been like to be Oppenheimer in those moments.” With this film, he has achieved exactly that, providing us the story of a broken man who changed the world beyond his own comprehension, and in doing so became an American hero he never knew he didn’t want to be. Oppenheimer is a masterwork of biographical storytelling, and yet another testament to the immense filmmaking talent of Christopher Nolan.