Oppenheimer

Three hours of mostly talking. That’s what Oppenheimer is—a film of white men (and occasionally white women) standing around in rooms having conversations about the future of the world. Only in this case, that future they are discussing (ending WWII) is anything but purely theoretical. Remarkably, in terms of a cinematic sense, those discussions are riveting. Much credit must be given to director Christopher Nolan for assembling such an extraordinary cast and creating the kind of movement that relentlessly pushes the film forward for accomplishing this feat. In the annals of film history, I can think of only one other film that, through the use of score, top-flight actors, and pure cinematic brio that is also as long, talky, and about a significant historical event while also being similarly effective—Oliver Stone’s JFK. 

However one might feel about JFK and its historical accuracy, there can be no reasonable questioning of the powerful nature of Oliver Stone’s filmmaking. The same must be said of Nolan’s Oppenheimer. To have attempted to make this film in such a way speaks not only to the confidence and skill that Nolan has, but also to the power he has in the industry at this moment. Like Stone at the time of JFK, he could have gotten funding for any kind of film he wanted to make. That he chose the story of Robert Oppenheimer, and that he decided to make it in this fashion, speaks to his extraordinary level of ambition and capacity to get a studio to say “yes.”

The casting of Cillian Murphy as Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, is a bold stroke in and of itself. No one who has followed Murphy’s career would logically question his ability as an actor, it’s just that he’s one of those entertainers in his profession who seemed on the cusp of stardom who never quite made it over the hump. 

Murphy first made an impact on film in 28 Days Later way back in 2002. Several quality parts in highly respected films: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Cold Mountain, Batman Begins, Breakfast on Pluto, Red Eye, Sunshine, The Dark Knight, and Inception came to him over the next decade, but despite being striking in appearance, having the bluest of blue eyes, and being clearly talented, Murphy never quite became a star (although fans of Peaky Blinders may take issue with me). 

Regardless, putting Murphy front and center, in an almost action-free three-hour film, is not what you do when you are hoping for a slam dunk lead to help you bring in the masses.  Nolan’s bet on Murphy has come through like a royal flush though, as Oppenheimer has made well over $300 million at the box office, and Murphy is a certain Oscar contender, and deservedly so. 

Murphy’s take on Robert Oppenheimer is quite brave. This is a man who has both principles and ambition, and the two are often in conflict. Murphy’s Oppenheimer is an enigma, even unto himself. At no point is this made more clear than when after the bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Oppenheimer is giving what should be a victory speech to his fellow Los Alamos crew of scientists and their family members, that we see him having a vision of nuclear fallout upon his adoring crowd. “What have I done?,” we can see Oppenheimer thinking. What have I unleashed on the world?

One of the great perspectives that the film elucidates is the idea of a man thinking in science. The visual effects in Oppenheimer are both eye-popping and tasteful. They give us the sense of what it’s like to be in the creator of the Atom Bomb’s head. What Murphy’s Robert Oppenheimer struggles with is his conscience. The idea that well over 100,000 Japanese people are going to die is not lost on him. But his mission is to end the war and save America from a prolonged ground and air war that will surely result in more GI casualties, and to that mission he is bound. 

There is also a naïveté in Murphy’s Oppenheimer. He honestly believes that once the bombs are dropped, that the world will be so horrified that no one would ever consider another bomb. That the thought of such a thing would be so awful as to reset the mentality of world leaders. He soon learns he is wrong. 

When meeting with President Harry Truman (Gary Oldman in a tasty cameo), Oppenheimer learns just how misguided he is. Truman sees an arms race coming, and he damn sure wants to be sure that the USA is well out in front of the Russians, who may have made for convenient allies during the war, but are clearly the enemy going forward. One could argue that the greatest element in creating the Cold War is the presence of nuclear power, and Truman has no interest in being the President who took a softer view of the Soviet intention to keep up with the States.

In fact, Oppenheimer is so foolish as to say, when Truman asks what should be done with the Los Alamos test site, to “give it back to the Indians”–a piece of advice that Truman dismisses out of hand. And with that quote comes the most (and perhaps only) problematic aspect of the film Oppenheimer. 

There is a saying in the legal industry that is used (typically by the judge) when an attorney goes into an area that may be unhelpful to their client: “You opened the door.” Had Nolan’s Oppenheimer not opened the door on the fate of “the Indians” perhaps we could ignore the papering over of a significant moment in history, but open the door Nolan did. 

Those so-called “Indians” were Mexican-Americans whose land was taken, their cattle shot, and the land owners and their families then put to work on Los Alamos without safety gear. Many of them died of early deaths due to exposure, resulting in a variety of cancers. A class action suit was filed against the government on behalf of the Mexican-American locals, and won. The film Oppenheimer, up until Oppenheimer’s suggestion of returning the land, makes no mention of that population or the sad fate that befell them. As a filmmaker who traffics in complex (sometimes too complex—see Tenet as an example) storytelling with characters who often exist in the gray area, it’s hard to understand that how Nolan, with a three-hour running time, didn’t give more than a cursory mention to the fates of the minority landowners. Up until Oppenheimer utters those words, you are under the impression that all of the testing takes place on his family’s land. Not so. And again, had Nolan left that out completely, perhaps that issue wouldn’t niggle at me as it does. 

Should that significant oversight reduce the overall value of Oppenheimer? I would say no. Films are dramatizations, not historical documents (and let’s face it, historical documents often have their own issues). But it is a chink in an otherwise sterling suit of armor. 

That being said, the artistic restraint of Oppenheimer is fairly remarkable. Almost any other movie would have shown the dropping of the two bombs on Japan as the centerpiece of the film. Not so here. It’s the final test bomb at Los Alamos that provides the most powerful visual event in the film. And when it happens, Nolan delivers the moment in all but complete silence. There is both a beauty and a horror in the bomb’s execution. The flames after detonation are extraordinary and captivating, but they are also like a vision of Hell rising up from the earth. In that moment, you know that the world will never be the same. Whatever joy that comes from the success of the test is offset by the meaning of that success. In that moment, we have become “the destroyer of worlds.” There will be no going back. What Oppenheimer doesn’t understand is that if you give mankind a weapon, they will want to use it.

Perhaps that is Robert Oppenheimer’s fatal flaw—his belief in the inherent decency of the human race. One of the most chilling scenes in the film is when Secretary of War Henry Stimson (a flinty James Remar) goes over the list of viable Japanese cities to target and excludes Kyoto because he and his wife honeymooned there. To think that such a decision was made in a matter-of-fact way, based on a government official’s random personal experience with a particular city, cuts right to the bone. 

What’s also surprising about Oppenheimer is how much movie is left after the bombs drop and the war ends. For his service to his country, Oppenheimer is made into an outcast, per the ‘50s red scare of communism. Despite having only a fleeting connection to the Communist Party, Oppenheimer, a man who served his country to the fullest extent, becomes a pariah. Thanks in large part to Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), a key member of the Atomic Energy Commission, who, due to what one might deem the slightest of slights, goes from Oppenheimer advocate to antagonist, Oppenheimer eventually loses his security clearance, and his status as a prominent scientist. 

As Emily Blunt, playing Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty, says, “The vindictive are patient,” and Strauss is very patient indeed. And while Oppenheimer’s significance is restored years later when he receives the Enrico Fermi Award from LBJ, many a year was lost. Much of Oppenheimer’s latter portion is given over to the destruction of a man through politics, bureaucracy, and pettiness. We tear down those who we build up. 

The question that remains at the end of Oppenheimer is how much of that build up and tear down did Oppenheimer deserve? Did his creation end the war and save American lives? Most certainly. Did his creation create a nuclear scare that lives on to this day? Absolutely. He’s the slipperiest of slippery figures. It is to Nolan’s credit that he does not attempt to answer these questions for you. He leaves it to you, the audience, to decide. 

The enigma of Robert Oppenheimer is illuminated, but not defined. I suspect that’s because in the final analysis, strict definition of the man is beyond the conceptualization of the human mind. 

Some mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable. History can reflect, but only sort out so much. Robert Oppenheimer will likely always live in the in-between. Hero, villain, genius, opportunist, good man, bad man–maybe it all depends on the moment. Could not the same be said of so many of us? Maybe we all live in the in-between, it’s just that the stakes of our own lives are never so high.