Skipping across multiple timelines - this is a Christopher Nolan film, after all - much of the meat of the story comes framed by a grey-haired Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) testifying in a shabby little room to a group of men who, it rapidly becomes clear, do not have his best interests at heart. Youthful, frizzy haired Oppenheimer's past studying "the new physics" across Europe is skimmed across; when he settles down in Berkley to teach, the clouds of war are already boiling and his dalliances with Communism are raising eyebrows.
Meanwhile in a black & white 1959, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr) is going before a senate committee hearing to confirm him as a member of Eisenhower's cabinet. Post war, he gave Oppenheimer a job at Princeton; now, it gradually becomes clear, the father of the Atomic Bomb has fallen from public favour. Will their past connection cost Strauss a cushy government job? And what exactly was the nature of their connection anyway?
Nolan is good at a lot of things, and juggling plot points to create suspense has been a strong point of his all the way back to Memento. The final hour of this three hour film pulls together a range of well-woven strands to build a solid drama around the fall of an American Prometheus (though Icarus seems almost as appropriate). For a film touted for its stunning visuals and IMAX cinematography, it's surprising how much of this is just men in suits in small rooms; there are other ways for a film to be big, and when it counts this delivers big time.
For one, there's a cast stacked with stars (a repeated pattern is a recognisable name getting one big scene, then a muted callback set years later); for another there's plenty of sweeping desert scenery at Los Alamos - at times it feels like Oppenheimer's trademark hat should have been a cowboy one. Despite many of the scientists being refugees from Europe (and wanting to beat Hitler to the Bomb is shown as their primal motivation), Nolan makes sure to frame this as an American saga, stars and stripes flying high.
The core of this story is the Manhattan Project, though the mechanics and technical challenges are largely kept off-screen. Background reading isn't essential but wouldn't hurt, if only to keep track of the hurricane of scientists swirling around Oppenheimer's eye. We get the drift: the Bomb was a big deal, and on the rare occasions when this film wants to hammer home the point about the awful forces being unleashed - they do have to test the Bomb, even if there's more than zero chance it will ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world - rest assumed the hammer hits hard.
More important here is Oppenheimer himself; it's his name on the poster after all. This is a big budget epic with a recognisable human being at its center, which is to say Oppenheimer is often a smug jerk who turns his back on one wife (Florence Pugh), cheats on another (Emily Blunt), informs on his commie friends to a government he knows contains people who will torture or kill them, is wracked with guilt maybe a little too late, and is shocked to learn that the US military isn't his best friend once he's given them the city-destroying Bomb they wanted.
The film focuses tight on Oppenheimer, and intentionally so. The Atomic Bomb may have changed the world, but this isn't a film about that world; if he didn't see it, or imagine it, then - Strauss's confirmation aside - neither will we. He's a man who could and did inspire others, a leader of personal charm and charisma (how else could he have kept a rabble of top scientists working in the desert for years on a super weapon?), but here much of that is told, not shown.
When Oppenheimer does speak to a crowd or group, Nolan will often use that moment to show us his thoughts (sex scenes, charred corpses) rather than the effect of his words. Whatever he had in him to inspire such loyalty - beyond the natural attraction of Murphy's always compelling performance - remains a mystery.
What we do see clearly is that the world around him is one of overlapping modes of power, whether the systems of the state, the unity of organised labour, or personal commitment to an individual. Each are in violent dispute with the other, and giving your loyalty to one earns you the lifelong enmity of the rest. It is a world of eternal, brutal conflict; no wonder Oppenheimer came to regret giving it the Bomb.
- Anthony Morris
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