Review of Oppenheimer (2023) by 43In2014 — 24 Jul 2023

The short review: This film covers J Robert Oppenheimer's and Lewis Strauss's careers, using the former's 1954 hearing on the renewal of his nuclear security clearance and the latter's 1959 Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination as the Secretary of Commerce, to go into multiple flashbacks that covered the development of the A- and H-bombs, the communist witch-hunt and the latter's hate over the former. It is a good film with great acting, but it is hampered by Nolan-isms and excessive dialogue.

> Related media: I have not read the book this film is based on called American Prometheus.

> Negatives:

> 1. The Nolan-isms present in Tenet are back! The two hearings mentioned above, being five years apart, are not covered chronologically. Then there are multiple flashbacks that are also not shown chronologically. Labels on the year of the event shown would have helped, but no... there is not a single one! Some scenes are shown in black and white to indicate they are close recreations of actual events, while the coloured scenes are dramatisations of other events. Smart-ass Nolan could have easily made this clear!

> 2. While I understand that this is a drama, there is too much dialogue, particularly when this is 3 hrs long (including credits). While the dialogue is somewhat engaging, the dialogue can be cut down by some 30 min and some of this replaced with more interesting scenes. This will unfortunately raise the film's cost of $100m by a lot however.

> 3. I had expected more coverage of the Manhattan Project work and did not expect than coverage of dialogue-heavy hearings.

> Positives:

> 1. It is a rather engaging film (engagement reduced due to length of film), with great acting from many.

> 2. It is an amazing effort to make a epic film for only $100m nowadays, considering the long list of actors, many of whom are respectable.

> How would the different age groups rate this: > Children: Average (overly long, dialogue-heavy and hard to follow).

> Teens: Good > Young adults: Excellent > Medium-age adults: Excellent > Older adults: Excellent.

> My rating: 4/5 (no half scores). Go watch it in the cinema (because it is good and everyone is discussing it now; if the movie had come out at other times, you should only need to catch it on TV.