Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

BSO Entertainment

BSO Reviews Oppenheimer: We Blowing Up Sh*t

Of all the films to hit the theater this summer, Oppenheimer was the one I wanted to see the most. In fact, I told my partner to make it my birthday present. I’ve long been a fan of technology and most people probably don’t realize that most of our technological advances come from the military. GPS? Military. Digital cameras? Military. Duct tape? Military. Even things like canned food and ambulances came from the military. So, when Christopher Nolan announced a biopic on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb, I was absolutely on board and excited. 

Nolan tapped Cillian Murphy to portray the titular character and Murphy knocked it out of the park. Setting Murphy aside for a second, Oppenheimer was a very complicated man. Just like most people of extreme intelligence, they operate on a plane of existence that isn’t always compatible with our reality. This is something I’m grateful to have seen touched on in Oppenheimer. Because of these complications, it became really difficult to stick Oppenheimer in a box, which is what the government wanted to do after they’d extracted their use of him during World War II. 

A lot of people don’t grasp that really intelligent people are impossible to place within a box because so much of what makes them who they are comes from a variety of different places. While Lewis Strauss saw Oppenheimer as a communist and a roadblock to American superiority, Oppenheimer saw the future in which we currently. The future where nuclear weapons hang over our very lives and attempt to control the ways in which our world operates. Oppenheimer saw reality, Strauss only saw his own career and success. 

This becomes abundantly clear when you’ve seen the entire film but then step out into a reality where Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons every other day while they attempt to conquer a free nation and bomb their civilians into oblivion. This review isn’t meant to be political, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the very fabric of this film, which was Oppenheimer’s growing fear of a nuclear arms race and it ultimately led to him being stripped of his security clearance. To not address this issue when we have clear hindsight on who was right and who was deadly wrong would be negligence on my behalf. 

Coming back to Murphy, he portrays this complication and inward retrospection with brilliance and ease. This film was extremely well cast and Murphy led that charge opposite Robert Downey Jr., who played the aforementioned Lewis Strauss. Matt Damon was brilliant as Leslie Groves, who has been largely forgotten by history. Groves always had an eye for talent throughout his career, but because his successes came off the battlefield, we don’t celebrate his contributions to the military. In some small way, Damon playing Groves lends some credibility to the importance of this character and his decisions throughout the Manhattan Project. 

Florence Pugh was equally talented in her role as Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer’s mistress. Though I felt that their relationship was largely glossed over and only served as a backdrop for Oppenheimer losing his security clearance, Pugh did wonders with what she was given. Emily Blunt played Kitty Oppenheimer and delivered a mesmerizing performance, especially toward the end of the film. That sorta sums up this entire movie; when the stars were given a substantial period to shine, they did so, and then some. They just weren’t given those moments very often. 

The supporting cast to this film helped make it a tremendous success and I think my favorite supporting character was David Krumholtz’s Isidor Isaac Rabi, who would go on to replace Oppenheimer on the Atomic Energy Commission. In real life, Rabi was the most vocal supporter of Oppenheimer at that sketchy hearing designed to railroad him. Krumholtz has always been one of my favorites going back to Numb3rs. He knows how to play a scientist with conviction. 

Overall, I wanted to like Oppenheimer more than I did. Nolan has always favored a style of storytelling that goes back and forth, but it felt especially extra during Oppenheimer. I felt that many scenes weren’t given enough time to brew and could have had way more impact if they hadn’t immediately cut to something else. Many times it felt kind of jarring and this comes from someone who thinks Nolan is a very talented director. This might be a case similar to Wes Anderson, where Wes Anderson became the reason Wes Anderson films didn’t generate the expected outcome. 

Even with that, I still rather enjoyed the film and would highly recommend it to anyone who has yet to see it. If you’re interested in military technology and weapons, this is also the film for you. It’s a very powerful film and has a lot to say. It gives people something to think about, especially with the war in Ukraine raging on and on. Oppenheimer is a film about duality and complications. It’s only fitting that my review be just as complicated and difficult to fit into a box. 

BSO Rating: 7.75 out of 10



Advertisement

Subscribe to BSO Facebook

Advertisement