Susan Granger’s review of “Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)
Inventive writer/director Christopher Nolan faced an awesome challenge: shaping Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherman’s comprehensive, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography – “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” (2005) – into a cohesive, three-hour film.
Admittedly complicated and confusing, its solemn concept melds science with drama, fusion with fission, and a multitude of characters with 20th century history, chronicled by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema in IMAX 70-millimeter.
While the non-linear plot involves creating a top-secret coalition of scientists to build an atomic bomb, it also explores dense themes of coercion, Communism, and collective vision.
At its center is soft-spoken theorist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he often conversed with eminent Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) about quantum physics.
During World War II, Oppenheimer was recruited by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to spearhead the Manhattan Project which sequestered the best physicists in the United States in a sort of intellectual boot camp in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to develop the weapon that would force Japan to surrender.
His Nobel Prize-winning colleagues included Isidore Rabi (David Krumholtz), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett) and Edward Teller (Benny Safdie). Only weeks after its first test in July, 1945, ‘Trinity’ was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Digressing into Oppenheimer’s personal life, Nolan delves into his dysfunctional sexual relationship with psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a member of the American Communist Party, and his subsequent marriage to troubled Kathleen ‘Kitty’ (Emily Blunt), resilient mother of his children.
Later on, Oppenheimer philosophically opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and advised U.S. politicians to cooperate in an international agreement to put restrictions on the use of nuclear weapons.
His ambivalence and audacity eventually placed him in direct conflict with duplicitous Adm. Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who stripped him of his security clearance during the politically paranoid McCarthy era.
The supporting cast also includes Jason Clarke, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Matthew Modine, Kenneth Branagh and Gary Oldman. Expect Oscar nominations not only for Christopher Nolan but also for Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr., who deliver the most indelible performances of their respective careers.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Oppenheimer” is an intense, exacting, explosive 8, playing in theaters.
