Review of Oppenheimer (2023) by Thegreatjack — 23 Jul 2023

Right from the opening scene, a dangerous seed is germinating in the mind of Cillian Murphy's J. Robert Oppenheimer. It's growing, slowly and steadily, sprouting into different corners of his mind - infecting him. He's being tortured by it. In one corner, he has the power to end World War II and save countless lives in the process. In the other corner, his findings mark a turning point for humanity. He's unleashed the most terrifying weapon ever conceived. And Oppenheimer knows it's power. He knows the threat it poses. But this seed, this plant in his mind is telling him that at all costs, he has to end the war. And that overpowers him.

It's an epic, a historical epic at that, but a visual marvel and a technical masterpiece nonetheless. But as much as Nolan prepares you for the spectacle that will follow, nothing can prepare you for the character study you get to witness. Headed by the performance of the year from Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer never ceases in his relentless advance to horrify you. He finds humanity in conversations with peers and love interests, but he's being destroyed, corrupted by his own mind. A ferocious battle takes place throughout the movie, but it's not in the warzone, it's inside the thoughts of the leading man. He's under an enormous amount of stress that nobody on the face of the current planet can realise. It's not possible to perceive this man's life. Being suddenly wrapped up in a ridiculous plot to build a machine that can split and atom in two. Just picture an atom. You can't possibly. It's inconceivably small, nobody has ever seen one. And he's trying to harness the power of that process to kill hundreds of thousands of people. That should give you can idea of the inhumanity of this film.

Which brings me neatly on to my final point on the writing. You'd think a film about Oppenheimer, the man who created the bomb that was unleashed onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would fixate heavily on those two events. It doesn't, and that was a delightful surprise to me. Everyone knows the destruction caused by the bomb in those cities. But to truly get us into the mind of Oppenheimer, we're not allowed to see it. Because Oppenheimer wouldn't have. He could only imagine the event, and I believe that would horrify him more than anything else. Imagine you've built the bomb. You can witness the test, but you can't see the results. You know what you've made will cause death to the fullest extent, and I can only imagine how much absolute pain that would cause you. I've never watched a proper documentary on Oppenheimer. I know who he is and what he's done, but I had no perspective on his life at all. In 3 hours, Nolan has told me everything I need to know about him. It's a testament to him as a brilliant director and screenwriter, but it's a testament to Cillian Murphy in equal fashion.

It would be an understatement to say that Murphy 'goes on a rollercoaster of emotions' throughout the duration of Oppenheimer. It's more like, if you put him on a rollercoaster, removed all safety gear, fired him into space and made him scale Mount Everest, all in an hour. By the end what he's showing can't even be defined as emotions. It's something nobody other than him has experienced. You look at Oppenheimer and see a man contorted with grief, guilt and riddled still with the same moral questions from 20 years prior. It's as if he's not even present at the meetings. He's a shell of a human. And the fact that Cillian does all this while giving complex lectures about quantum physics, the politics of the project, and surviving on a single almond is just phenomenal. I know that DiCaprio probably gives an immense performance later in the year in "Killers of the Flower Moon", but please, Academy, please give it to Cillian, he **** deserves it. The whole cast deserves an Oscar to be honest. Robert Downey Jr. was note perfect. Absolutely the star of the show in the scenes without Oppy. And Emily Blunt too, what a performance. Especially that one scene, which, if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I'm referring to when I say it was exceptional. It's just a genius movie all-round, suffering from a few pacing issues at the start and towards the end, but everything else is phenomenal. The sound was stunning, the sets, costume and makeup were all historically accurate as far as I could tell. Just impeccable. Thank you, Nolan. Perhaps one of the only filmmakers still around where you just know every single one of his movies that comes out will be top notch. Without fail, not a single miss in his filmography. I'm excited for Scorsese and Villeneuve's projects this year as well, because they are the only ones, along with Nolan, that I can rely on to give me a masterpiece. Tarantino also gets the same treatment from me, but no movies this year from him unfortunately.

Already booked to rewatch this in IMAX in a few days.