The movie has flashes of greatness, but it’s also a bit of a letdown.
It’s generally considered best practice for film critics to review the movie that was actually made, rather than to judge it against the theoretical movie they wanted to see. But as this is a post and not a formal review, I will depart from that practice and say that, while Oppenheimer was a very good movie, with flashes of greatness, it was also a bit of a letdown.
As with Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which took place in three different timelines portraying the land, sea, and air elements of the evacuation, Oppenheimer is divided into three different narratives woven together. One is a more standard biopic narrative, tracing Robert Oppenheimer’s life from his days as a graduate student, to his time as a physics professor, to his womanizing, to his leading the Manhattan Project, and to his post-war regrets about having unleashed the atomic bomb on the world. Another concerns the 1954 hearing to revoke his security clearance. And yet another involves the 1959 confirmation battle of Lewis Strauss. While I enjoyed the Los Alamos parts of the movie, Nolan, perhaps thinking the story of the Manhattan Project is already well known, seemed more interested in portraying other parts of Oppenheimer’s life. I get that this is supposed to be a movie about Oppenheimer, rather than merely a movie about the development of the bomb, but there is so much focus on the post-war political plot lines that the Los Alamos parts almost become an afterthought. It seems like an odd decision, when given the choice to focus on the world-historical event of the race against the Nazis to get the bomb, to devote so much screen time in a three-hour movie to a commerce-secretary confirmation fight.
To be clear, there were parts of the movie that were spectacular, especially the mesmerizing sequence portraying the test of the first atomic bomb. The sequence also demonstrates Nolan’s attention to detail. As an example: In the run-up to this movie, I was reading the parts of Richard Feynman’s memoir in which he recounts his experiences in Los Alamos as a young physicist. He tells the story of how, during the Trinity test, he declined to wear dark glasses and instead sat in a car because the windshield would protect him from ultraviolet rays and he would be able to see it with his own eyes. Feynman is a background figure in Oppenheimer, but there is a throwaway moment in which he’s shown sitting in the car during the test and waving off glasses.
But there were other parts that hit me as false notes. The few scenes with Albert Einstein came off as forced. There’s a part where John F. Kennedy is referred to as if he is some sort of obscure senator despite the fact that he came from a prominent family, had a well-publicized war record, and had been runner-up for the Democratic vice-presidential slot in 1956. He may not yet have been a household name in 1959, but certainly a cabinet nominee wouldn’t need to be briefed on who he was.
As far as the debate over his security clearance, I will give Nolan credit in that it is not portrayed, in the typical Hollywood fashion, as if the suspicions about him were totally unfounded. The film details his extensive associations with communists, Soviet espionage at Los Alamos, his reckless behavior, and his relaxed attitude toward protecting state secrets.
To be clear, I do not share Armond White’s distaste for the film (you can read his full review here). I would still recommend that people see it and that they do so on the big screen. But I also think that it’s been a bit overhyped.