If you’d have ever told me that one of the greatest cinematic showdowns of my life so far would be between a gritty WWII biopic concerning the creation of the atomic bomb, and a live action Barbie film I don’t think I ever would have believed you. But here we are, Barbenheimer officially arrived, and it was one of the best weekends for cinemas in history with screenings of both films packed out across the globe. Christopher Nolan’s latest venture promises not only the usual Nolan affair of a great screenplay and performances, but it’s also a technical marvel for the IMAX format which Nolan is a massive advocate for. Shot with a combination of 70mm film and 70mm IMAX film, as well as the first film ever to use black and white IMAX film. Oppenheimer required exhibitors wanting to show the 70mm film print to upgrade their IMAX reels to accommodate for the epic three-hour runtime, with an end-to-end reel length of over eleven miles. But as exciting as I find all this because I’m a real nerd for technical specifications, is Oppenheimer worth all the buzz, or should it be cast into the Los Alamos desert and blown up?
Oppenheimer charts the life of the father of the atomic bomb, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), from his days studying at Cambridge, to his fledgling program of quantum theory at Berkley, through his appointment as the head of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during the height of World War II; then his rise in celebrity status as he became the figurehead for nuclear weapons control following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his eventual discreditation during the Cold War at the hands of the U.S. government out of fear of his communist affiliations in his youth.
Oppenheimer charts the life of the father of the atomic bomb, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), from his days studying at Cambridge, to his fledgling program of quantum theory at Berkley, through his appointment as the head of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during the height of World War II; then his rise in celebrity status as he became the figurehead for nuclear weapons control following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his eventual discreditation during the Cold War at the hands of the U.S. government out of fear of his communist affiliations in his youth.
The framing of the plot is that of two different hearings. One being that of Oppenheimer himself in 1954 where it was to be determined whether he was a threat to national security; and one of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) who is being considered for the Secretary of Commerce. Nolan jumps around in time a lot during this film, telling events out of chronological order, and it can prove to be difficult to keep up at times. It’s one of the few films I have seen twice before reviewing it because I felt I needed to be clear on things, particularly the last thirty minutes or so. The film may be three hours long, but the rate at which it moves it feels like two. It never stops on anything for longer than a few minutes and it's somewhat impressive to see just how much Nolan crammed into this film. But that’s also one of the biggest issues I have with Oppenheimer, there’s so much of it, and yet because it can’t focus on anything for longer than a few minutes there are some areas of the film I felt needed much more depth given to them.
For example, Oppenheimer’s first marriage to Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) is over before you even know it’s begun. The two meet at a party, have sex, then have an argument, and then he’s off romancing Kitty (Emily Blunt) who the next time we see her is married to him and has given birth to their first child. If you took all of that and cut out everything else going on in between those scenes, you’d have at most around ten minutes of screentime. It’s so brief that you get no sense of the dynamic that Oppenheimer and Tatlock had, and yet she is used as a huge emotional plot point later in the film, but because you have no sense of what the relationship between the two of them was like then you can’t get particularly invested in the drama that unfolds later on.
The big thrill of Oppenheimer is, of course, the Manhattan Project. Seeing this moment in human history brought to life in such impressive scale is truly gripping. Nolan perfectly balances scientific exposition with a political war drama, and seeing Oppenheimer come to loggerheads with just about everyone for one reason or another during this sequence is some of Nolan’s best work.
It’s well documented by now that Nolan & co. detonated an actual bomb to film the test sequence rather that recreate the explosion with digital effects. Not an atomic bomb obviously, but several tons of dynamite give off a reasonably similar effect. I won’t deny that it looks incredible, and I do marvel at the lengths Nolan will go to in order to use as few digital effects as possible, but this time it does seem a tad pretentious. The result is admittedly stunning, and in combination with Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography, Oppenheimer is a very good-looking film. Obviously with Nolan being such an advocate for IMAX and the film championing that as far as it can by being presented in 70mm IMAX film, it came as a surprise to me that the image never really needs that extra space. My first viewing was a 70mm IMAX showing at the BFI IMAX in Waterloo, one of only three cinemas in the UK that can exhibit the film in that format, and my second viewing was in a traditional cinema screen. I never got the feeling that Oppenheimer needed that extra screen-space, it never felt like it needed to be as massive as it was. It’s a weird situation to find myself in because Nolan is such a champion of that format, and usually utilises it to the fullest. So, I found myself wondering why I felt it suited a smaller screen more? I think I found it more intimate on a smaller scale, and whilst the detonation test at Los Alamos was certainly mesmerising in IMAX, I don’t feel an awful lot of that effect was lost in the downsizing.
For example, Oppenheimer’s first marriage to Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) is over before you even know it’s begun. The two meet at a party, have sex, then have an argument, and then he’s off romancing Kitty (Emily Blunt) who the next time we see her is married to him and has given birth to their first child. If you took all of that and cut out everything else going on in between those scenes, you’d have at most around ten minutes of screentime. It’s so brief that you get no sense of the dynamic that Oppenheimer and Tatlock had, and yet she is used as a huge emotional plot point later in the film, but because you have no sense of what the relationship between the two of them was like then you can’t get particularly invested in the drama that unfolds later on.
The big thrill of Oppenheimer is, of course, the Manhattan Project. Seeing this moment in human history brought to life in such impressive scale is truly gripping. Nolan perfectly balances scientific exposition with a political war drama, and seeing Oppenheimer come to loggerheads with just about everyone for one reason or another during this sequence is some of Nolan’s best work.
It’s well documented by now that Nolan & co. detonated an actual bomb to film the test sequence rather that recreate the explosion with digital effects. Not an atomic bomb obviously, but several tons of dynamite give off a reasonably similar effect. I won’t deny that it looks incredible, and I do marvel at the lengths Nolan will go to in order to use as few digital effects as possible, but this time it does seem a tad pretentious. The result is admittedly stunning, and in combination with Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography, Oppenheimer is a very good-looking film. Obviously with Nolan being such an advocate for IMAX and the film championing that as far as it can by being presented in 70mm IMAX film, it came as a surprise to me that the image never really needs that extra space. My first viewing was a 70mm IMAX showing at the BFI IMAX in Waterloo, one of only three cinemas in the UK that can exhibit the film in that format, and my second viewing was in a traditional cinema screen. I never got the feeling that Oppenheimer needed that extra screen-space, it never felt like it needed to be as massive as it was. It’s a weird situation to find myself in because Nolan is such a champion of that format, and usually utilises it to the fullest. So, I found myself wondering why I felt it suited a smaller screen more? I think I found it more intimate on a smaller scale, and whilst the detonation test at Los Alamos was certainly mesmerising in IMAX, I don’t feel an awful lot of that effect was lost in the downsizing.
What I found to be one of the most engaging aspects of Oppenheimer was the shift between colour and greyscale depending on the viewpoint of events. The black and white sequences, which are almost exclusively from Strauss’ viewpoint are, according to Nolan, objective and present known verifiable facts; whereas the colour sequences, which most of the film is presented it, are more speculative and therefore are more likely to have been embellished for dramatic effect. Even without knowing what it’s supposed to mean, I feel like the visual shift from colour to black and white worked really well when it was employed. The black and white almost felt like a testimony, whereas the colour was the elaboration of that.
The film has a huge cast of big names, and everyone brings their best so it’s quite difficult to nail down specific performances that stood out. Obviously, Murphy carries this film on his shoulders, and he does a great job. His portrayal of Oppenheimer as this troubled man who’s deathly scared of the future and the ramifications of what he is building does allow him to be a more relatable character than the real J. Robert Oppenheimer may have been. It’s a shame that Pugh isn’t given more things to do in the film beyond sitting there in the nude, because she’s one of the best actresses in Hollywood right now and what she does offer up here is fantastic, unfortunately we just don’t get very much of her because the screenplay relegates her almost exclusively to sex scenes.
Blunt delivers the most emotional performance of the whole film, particularly during the hearings where hers and her husband’s lives are being ‘paraded around’ as she puts it.
If I were to pick one standout though it would be Downey Jr.’s turn as Strauss. They way he controls a scene when he’s in it is unlike any other person in the film, he has this presence that makes him the man you look at, the man you listen to. The way he uses language to steer the flow of the conversation, in combination with great facial cues just makes him stand out that tiny bit more than the rest.
The film has a huge cast of big names, and everyone brings their best so it’s quite difficult to nail down specific performances that stood out. Obviously, Murphy carries this film on his shoulders, and he does a great job. His portrayal of Oppenheimer as this troubled man who’s deathly scared of the future and the ramifications of what he is building does allow him to be a more relatable character than the real J. Robert Oppenheimer may have been. It’s a shame that Pugh isn’t given more things to do in the film beyond sitting there in the nude, because she’s one of the best actresses in Hollywood right now and what she does offer up here is fantastic, unfortunately we just don’t get very much of her because the screenplay relegates her almost exclusively to sex scenes.
Blunt delivers the most emotional performance of the whole film, particularly during the hearings where hers and her husband’s lives are being ‘paraded around’ as she puts it.
If I were to pick one standout though it would be Downey Jr.’s turn as Strauss. They way he controls a scene when he’s in it is unlike any other person in the film, he has this presence that makes him the man you look at, the man you listen to. The way he uses language to steer the flow of the conversation, in combination with great facial cues just makes him stand out that tiny bit more than the rest.
I must talk about the score too. Ludwig Goransson has created one of the best films scores I have ever heard in this film. It is beautiful, haunting, nerve-wracking, and heart-wrenching. This is absolutely a score I’m going to be buying and keeping for my collection. As good as the film was, the score was better, it elevated this film to heights it simply could not have achieved with something else.
Which unfortunately brings me back to the age-old problem of the infamous Nolan sound mix. It’s no secret that Nolan films have bad sound mixing and usually the excuse is that it’s designed for IMAX sound systems. Well, I’m certainly looking forward to watching Oppenheimer with some subtitles on because there’re large portions of this film where the score (as amazing as it was) far overpowered the dialogue, and even in the BFI IMAX, a theatre that Nolan specifically designs his films for, the sound mix was just not where it should have been. It often sounded muddy and muffled, and as usual, everything was just way too loud.
There are aspects of Oppenheimer that should be celebrated, because films like this just don’t get made the way this one has. A biopic shot on film, for IMAX? It’s something to be celebrated for sure. Not to mention the fact that the story is extremely engaging, the performances are excellent, and that score is nothing short of perfection. However, it needs more time to flesh out a lot of what it shows, and the sound mix continues to be a letdown. For me, Nolan continues to be a director that’s somewhat overrated, but Oppenheimer does deliver where it counts.
Which unfortunately brings me back to the age-old problem of the infamous Nolan sound mix. It’s no secret that Nolan films have bad sound mixing and usually the excuse is that it’s designed for IMAX sound systems. Well, I’m certainly looking forward to watching Oppenheimer with some subtitles on because there’re large portions of this film where the score (as amazing as it was) far overpowered the dialogue, and even in the BFI IMAX, a theatre that Nolan specifically designs his films for, the sound mix was just not where it should have been. It often sounded muddy and muffled, and as usual, everything was just way too loud.
There are aspects of Oppenheimer that should be celebrated, because films like this just don’t get made the way this one has. A biopic shot on film, for IMAX? It’s something to be celebrated for sure. Not to mention the fact that the story is extremely engaging, the performances are excellent, and that score is nothing short of perfection. However, it needs more time to flesh out a lot of what it shows, and the sound mix continues to be a letdown. For me, Nolan continues to be a director that’s somewhat overrated, but Oppenheimer does deliver where it counts.