Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
Christopher Nolan’s most recent film, “Oppenheimer” (2023), is a fantastic film.
It’s based on a biography of Oppenheimer — “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin — and it tells the story of the creation of the atomic bomb by a team led by Robert J. Oppenheimer. There are three intertwining timelines in the film: Oppenheimer’s life from the 30s through to the 50s; Oppenheimer’s security hearing in 1954; and, in black-and-white to differentiate from the other two, Lewis Strauss’s Senate nomination hearing in 1959. Questions at the two hearings prompt flashbacks to the past — Oppenheimer’s grad school in Cambridge; his time as a theoretical quantum physicist in Berkeley, along with his involvement in the Communist party; Lieutenant General Groves’ request that he run the Manhattan Project; the building of the bomb in Los Alamos; Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Oppenheimer’s anti-nuclear stance post-war.
Suspense builds from jumping back and forth between Oppenheimer’s hearing and his life. The soundtrack plays a similar role: it’s near-constant and ominous, with the occasional sustained note sounding like the whistle of a bomb through the air. Moments of complete silence become more shocking from their rarity — for example, when Oppenheimer watches the test atomic bomb go off in silent slow motion. “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer says in a voiceover of the moment. Later, in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the cheers of Oppenheimer’s celebrating colleagues begin to sound like screams.
The film adheres impressively well to the biography, despite the compressions or omissions necessitated by the book’s length. For instance: Groves comes into a room, takes off his coat, hands it to Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson and tells him to “get this dry-cleaned” — seemingly a throw-off scene, but one taken almost word-for-word from the biography.
The other interesting aspect of the film was the depiction of Oppenheimer himself. We’re left with no clear verdict, but a mish-mash of understanding and incomprehension. Oppenheimer was instrumental to the building of the bomb; he supported dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; he was overcome with guilt and argued against nuclear armaments for the rest of his life. He was brilliant — in almost anything, not just physics; he learned enough Dutch in six weeks to successfully give a lecture on quantum theory — and he was proportionately egotistical, but also self-flagellating. According to his wife, he thinks that if he “lets them tar and feather him,” the world will forgive him, or love him; it doesn’t.
All in all, it’s a brilliant film, complicated and fascinating and horrifying by turns. I highly recommend it.
Find “Oppenheimer” at Kitchener Public Library!