To walk on the shoulders of physic giants in the 20th century has always fascinated me. Those names: Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, Rutherford, Lawrence....as if they had invented the whole world within 2 decades! And those giants were made from human flesh! This is interesting, it really is.
And then there is Oppenheimer, a difficult and complex character that was the bridge to open up the story from curious invention of some european physicists to the american nuclear bomb, the destroyer weapon of worlds. What he really added to physcics is unclear, except the he as the project manager of the Manhattan project. Let me be brief: 2 hours should have been the length. But Nolan was so close to the book it turned out to be 3 hours and it is so full of details, we cannot grasp it all. All is elaborate dialogue, which is exhausting. Did we need all the twists, every union protest, every hearing in the senate, every 3rd grade lab specialist scene to tell the whole story of Prometheus?
Still, I can assure you that the best way to enjoy Oppenheimer is to watch the move a second time and just skip the useless parts and only enjoy the great scenes. Sounds crazy, but to me this is something typical to a Chris Nolan movie - the second time is better than the first time. What are the best scenes:
- Trinity Bomb Explosion
- Edward Tellers statement for the jury (the respected arch enemy)
- The White House scene
- Rami Maleks statement to the jury (finally revenge)
- Einstein lake scene (especially the finale)
Then there are all the other scenes which left me icecold the whole movie:
- All the love scenes and affairs (Jean Tatlock) are just a cover. Did Nolan want to get the female audience involved? This film is ALL about men, it has little to do with women or family, really. I do not mean this is in a mean way, it is just not what is important to Oppenheimer.
- Robert Downey Jr. Character Schwartz is often boring. He tells us little, just a small bureaucrat (shoe salesman) that wants his career in the White House and is willing to go over Oppenheimers dead body for that. Of course this character is important, but do we need to see so much of him? And why is is not at all relatable?
- instead of showing some footage of the real drop of the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there is a theatre scene with Oppenheimer as the speaker to state that Japan was a "success". The audience gets grilled by the nuclear flash to illustrate the drama of mass murdership. The audience will understand this trick, however I think one should have invested in the real tragedy and show parts of the real thing to make it more credible why Oppenheimer starts to develop his guilt complex. Like flashbacks. This was a bit too surreal to me.
I leave it a this, but clearly this time Chris Nolan had no time to really reconsider if the movie should be really different from the book American Prometheus. There was no dramatic rewrite, instead he filmed every page. That did not help the audience.
Despite that, I can only say that watching the whole movie has 2 genuine scenes, that make it all worthwhile:
- Gary Oldman is incredible as Truman. Just some sentences and suddenly all self questionaires about guilt are ridicolous with Oppenheimer. It was Trumans decision to drop the bombs, not Oppenheimers. Oppenheimer is confused if his decision to run the project was really that important or not. Could he have avoided the nuclear arms race that was to follow or the bomb drops on Japan? Truman says no, you are just a project leader on nuclear bombs, I run the show. But how he says that - fantastic!
- The finale with Einstein: As usual Einstein is presented as a loveable character. But it helps! When you see the Teddybear being shocked by what Oppenheimer says to him about the world burning, it is touching. When Einstein turns and walk away, It is as if the atheist Einstein finally is angry with god about the faith of mankind. In that respect, a Einstein movie that was serious would have been the more interesting protagonist.
Maybe one has to watch the whole movie to feel the emotional rollercoaster that enfolds with these two scenes. Maybe not. As a film, Oppenheimer cannot compare to previous movies - maybe it would have been best to shoot a documentary instead.