Oppenheimer (2023)

There's only a few times in Christopher Nolan's illustrious back catalogue in which he deals in real life. 2017's Dunkirk was the most recent, but before that you have to go all the way back to 2002's Insomnia before his ventures into magic (or illusion), interstellar travel, time travel, or vigilantes dressed as bats.

Tenet (2020) was heralded as the film that was to bring fans back to the cinemas after covid, and although it was partially successful in this respect, it received a cooler reception critically than Nolan was perhaps used to.

Oppenheimer, as you're probably aware, is a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the vein of Pablo Larrain's Jackie (2016) or Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (2004) in that it chooses to focus on a specific portion or portions of the subject's life. Oppenheimer, somewhat unsurprisingly plays with different time periods, intertangling as the film flicks from one to the other whilst playing out over three main periods; Oppenheimer theorising quantum mechanics, the building of the H-bomb, and a decade or so post Hiroshima and Nagasaki as he's forced to justify his actions whilst building the bomb.

Like Nolan's best work, the film is dense, lengthy, and utterly gripping- from the opening minutes we're immediately thrown into the intertwining timelines in an editing style that's often used to set up a film. In the case of Oppenheimer this is exactly what you assume the film is doing; there's no way it can maintain this frantic pace and cutting whilst still being effective but somehow it does, for the duration of its near three hour run time.

A running storyline that doesn't actually involve Oppenheimer himself, a hearing to establish whether his former colleague Strauss should be appointed in a federal government role, plays out like a political thriller presented in black and white chrome, very reminiscent of George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck (2005) not least because Strauss is played by an alumni of that film, Robert Downey Jr in his best performance since Natural Born Killers (1994).

At this point it should be mentioned that there's absolutely no doubt Cillian Murphy in the title role should be up for an Oscar for his astonishing performance here, with every emotion visible on his face as he slowly realises too late his inventions limitless scope for destruction, and then a decade on his struggle to come to terms with both history itself and the way in which he's lauded then condemned.

Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh are arguably short changed in their roles as wife and lover respectively but it's presumably an accurate portrayal of the reality of Oppenheimer's own head space over the time period; and Nolan offers us several glimpses of the turmoil it causes Oppenheimer down the line.

Matt Damon provides another performance that bounces well off Murphy's as Lt Gen Leslie Groves, the man placed in charge of building an entire town from scratch to commence the construction of the bomb, a section that builds and builds the tension (like the bomb itself) up to the trial explosion- by which point you're gripping the edge of your seat as the characters null over the potential destruction of the planet whilst the countdown reaches ten seconds and Ludwig Göransson's fantastic score ramps up the stress.

Oppenheimer might not be Nolan's greatest achievement but it's not far off, repeat viewings are something to very much look forward to and see how it lies following them. It's a towering spectacle, entirely consuming and utterly thrilling, and like Nolan's best work, you leave the cinema thoroughly entertained. 8.5/10