Oppenheimer - Destroyer of Worlds
Note: This review is something I wrote at the time Oppenheimer was first released (which will become quickly obvious as you begin to read) that I never published or showed to anyone. Now, that I have finally committed to blogging my movie thoughts, it felt as good a time as any to release this one as Nolan's next film is nigh. Feels a little unfinished...maybe I'll publish a more polished, a more full-bodied review at some point down the road.
The moment in which film fans find themselves as I write this is rather unique. The dual movie event of the weekend of July 21, 2023 known as “Barbenheimer” is spectacularly peculiar, and is unlike any movie event that I can recall in the relatively short time I have been alive and have been aware of the wider popular culture. Greta Gerwig’s wildly anticipated adaptation of the classic Mattel product is the unlikely cinematic pairing with Christopher Nolan’s explosive (sorry) historical biopic… and people are coming out in droves. Even being aware of this phenomenon, whilst walking to my Sunday afternoon IMAX screening of ‘Oppenheimer’, I found myself surprised at the amount of young women and girls sporting bright pink clothing and various pieces of Barbie paraphernalia. Unfortunately, no one met the opposite aesthetic and chose to bring their wide brimmed fedora and ruffled pages of complicated mathematics in order to represent the legendary “Father of the Atomic Bomb”, but nonetheless the excitement for ‘Oppenheimer’ was felt. And boy, was I elated when the film finished and my expectations had been insanely exceeded. This, my friends, is not only worthy to be hailed as an unusual blockbuster and a “summer event film” but is also the best film directed by Christopher Nolan, full stop.
Propulsive, breathtaking, intelligent and mind-bogglingly ambitious, this epic tour-de-force is the embodiment of a filmmaker not only reckoning with an age-old historical moral quandary but conceding that humanity’s destruction by their own hands has been as inevitable as Nolan’s latest grossing more than $80 million dollars in the first weekend alone. In fact, ‘Oppenheimer’ is barely interested in the bomb. It assumes that the entire endeavor of the Manhattan project was so obviously misbegotten from the beginning and that the man behind it, and all of the people who knew him, will forever be unknowable and will never truly matter in the end. It is all bigger than any of us and no matter what any of us can say about J Robert Oppenheimer (whether we praise him, despise him, condemn him or are intrigued by him), it is a waste of time to dwell on it. His mistake was not expecting the worst to come from his genius. And Oppenheimer is not portrayed as kind, faithful, wise or even diplomatic. He is shown to be the complicated figure (the tortured genius, if you will) that he was believed to be, but he is not much of a character in this film. This, I believe, is by design. What we hear about the man is mostly from what other people believe about him. He is shown to be berated and accused. He is loved by his wife and mistress. He is shown to be admired by colleagues and mentors. He is loathed by his rivals and is eventually thrown to the wolves by government officials. But, the man himself, at least when he is portrayed through an objective lens, is mostly a cipher for bigger ideas. The few times he is allowed subjectivism and interiority, we see the expected emotions and experiences. A man racked by guilt from what he has created on a lonely island of horror and misery. The American Prometheus invented fire and the rest of the world continues to wallow in its ashes. It's an expected yet powerful statement - these weapons of war were never meant to be wielded and the consequences are monstrous.