Oppenheimer (2023) Film Review

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Based on American Prometheus, a 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, is another immense epic from one of the best directors in the business today. In this film, Nolan explores his first biopic through a character study of Robert J. Oppenheimer “The Father of the Atomic Bomb.” By this point, Nolan had become fed up with his former studio (Warner Bros) over how they handled the release of his previous film Tenet (i.e. tensions regarding the theatrical release versus streaming) so he switched his allegiance to a new studio for his next film: Universal. At three hours in length, Oppenheimer features Hoyte van Hoytema’s incredible 65mm IMAX cinematography (I believe this is the first IMAX film shot in black and white) along with a pounding, tense score by Ludwig Göransson (who has replaced Hans Zimmer as Nolan’s composer-of-choice in both Tenet and Oppenheimer). With Oppenheimer, Nolan continues his commitment to the classic style of movie-making and his deeply admirable commitment to using practical effects rather than digital CGI in his films. And as of the time I write this review, Oppenheimer has been amusingly released alongside a cornball Warner Bros cash-grab movie —Barbie— earning both films the summer 2023 blockbuster dual-moniker “Barbenheimer.”

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.
For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

In Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy delivers the performance of a lifetime as the titular Robert J. “Oppie” Oppenheimer, an impulsive and deeply complex theoretical physicist whose allegiances are deliberately left elusive in the movie –Is he a communist? An American patriot? Does he want his country to drop the atomic bomb? Or is he an opponent of nuclear weapons? Oppenheimer presents us with a remarkably nuanced character study of a conflicted man (in fact, Nolan uniquely wrote this screenplay in the first-person). His persona shows us the tension between atomic fission and fusion, and the conflict between scientific optimism and political realism. The “fission” sections of the film are shot in color, whereas the “fusion” sections are shot in black-and-white. He is raised in the tradition of Jewish liberal education, and as such, he grew into a multi-faceted man with numerous intellectual interests. While working on his PhD, Oppenheimer meets all the main players in theoretical and quantum physics in the early 20^th century –Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid), Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer), Kurt Gödel (James Urbaniak), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Hans Bethe (Gustaf Skarsgård), Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), Isidor Rabi (David Krumholtz), and many others (a great many extras in the film are themselves scientists). However, Oppenheimer despises his time in Europe, clumsily avoiding his laboratory work, and he resents his professor Patrick Blackett (James D’Arcy), even attempting to inject poison into an apple on his desk.

Oppenheimer returns to the United States where he accepts positions at Caltech and UC Berkeley, and around this time (the 1930s), he is exposed to various faculty-affiliated communist groups, especially through a friend Haakon Chavalier (Jefferson Hall), while he himself remains more of a standard leftist, or a New Deal Democrat. His chief connection to communism is by funneling money to refugees and anti-fascist causes in Francoist Spain during the Spanish Civil War (along with his own disappointment over U.S. foreign policy during the war), and he also begins having an affair with a young communist organizer named Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). She is a somewhat troubled woman who struggles with severe depression, but in these scenes we learn of Oppenheimer’s deep fascination with the Hindu scriptures –indeed, he has taught himself to read Sanskrit primarily to translate the Bhagavad Gita into English. Later in the film, when the reach of the U.S. government appears to be seemingly limitless, Jean Tatlock is found dead face-down in her bathtub –an apparent suicide (though a split-second cut reveals a hand on her neck). Conspiracy theories about her death continue to emerge to this day –a devoted communist, her phones were tapped, she was followed by intelligence agents, and J. Edgar Hoover was personally informed of her death. At any rate, her relationship with Oppenheimer was unforgettable for him, and he was deeply distraught over her death for the rest of his life.     

All of these early scenes in the film unfold at a break-neck pace –important historical moments are breezed over in a matter of seconds (this is my only frustration with the film). Meanwhile, the film’s non-linear plot is framed by periodic black-and-white flash-forwards to a closed-door security clearance hearing of Robert J. Oppenheimer, as well as a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for a cabinet appointment of Lewis Strauss. In time, we learn of Oppenheimer’s numerous affairs with different women, especially a twice divorced botanist-communist named “Kitty” (Emily Blunt) whom he accidentally impregnates while she is still married to her third husband. Needless to say, she quickly secures a divorce and marries for a fourth time to Robert Oppenheimer. But as an intense and severe woman, Kitty struggles to remain compassionate in motherhood. Shortly thereafter, new breakthroughs in German science begin to challenge all established understanding of physics and the U.S. government fears the Nazis are closing in on developing a nuclear weapon. Thus, General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) selects Oppenheimer to lead a new top-secret program, the “Manhattan Project,” organized to rapidly develop a nuclear bomb –though Oppenheimer was a controversial selection owing to his past communist ties.

“You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves, and the world is not prepared.”

The “Manhattan Project” is primarily relocated to Los Alamos, New Mexico in a remote part of the desert where Oppenheimer gathers a large group of the most renowned physicists dedicated to racing against the clock to develop an atomic bomb before the Nazis and their lead scientist Werner Heisenberg are able to do so. However, issues begin to arise relating to secrecy. Oppenheimer is trusting of his associates, whereas General Leslie remains adamant that the project must be compartmentalized in order to avoid leaks of sensitive information. All the scientists find their own ways of justifying the project, reminded of the atrocious genocide brought on by the Nazis and believing the project will actually save lives in the long-run. But once the Nazis are defeated, the American government pushes the Manhattan Project to push forward in the creation of a bomb to be dropped on Japan –in part, to definitively mark the end of World War II, but also to send a strong message to the Soviets against their wish to invade Japan (how quickly a World War II ally is turned into a Cold War enemy). While continuing to move forward on the project, the physicists involved explore the possibility that an atomic bomb could accidentally initiate a chain reaction which essentially destroys earth’s atmosphere, and ends all life as we know it. The film shows us this very real threat when using volatile technology like the atomic bomb. It is still a very real threat for us today.

After considerable planning, the first atomic bomb is detonated one day prior to the Potsdam Peace Conference between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin. The first detonation of “the gadget” is known as the “Trinity Test” –in honor of a John Donne poem. And this scene of the first detonation is simply astounding –gripping, intense, unforgettable– and as the bomb explodes for the first time, a heavy silence hangs over the air until a sonic boom finally strikes. During the detonation, Oppenheimer only hears the sounds of his intimacy with Jean many years prior with the words of the Bhagavad Gita ringing in his head –an echo of the triumphalist latent sexual undertones intimately connected to the detonation of the bomb (as explored in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove). Almost immediately, two more bombs are ordered and dropped over Japan at Truman’s insistence. The bombs and their aftermath are not shown in the film, but in this portion of the film, Americans are portrayed as little more than a pack of slack-jawed jingoists, ceaselessly lustful for war with little regard for truth or honor. For example, one leading American general decides not to drop an atomic bomb over Kyoto simply because he and his wife celebrated their honeymoon in the city. Also later in the film, Oppenheimer meets directly with President Truman (Gary Oldman) who is portrayed as a remorseless cowboy, disgusted by Oppenheimer when he confesses his guilt, feeling ‘blood on his hands’ for creating the atomic bomb. In response, Truman simply kicks him out of the Oval Office, calling him a “cry-baby.” And after Oppenheimer becomes a celebrity, praised as the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” with his face posted on the cover of TIME Magazine, he speaks before hordes of mindless American crowds, shrieking in support of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Good old-fashioned American fanaticism runs deep throughout the film (I was reminded in these moments of Nolan’s desire to create a film like Dunkirk which deliberately subverts the typical Hollywood cliché of the triumphalist American savior narrative).  

“They won’t fear it until they understand it. And they won’t understand it until they’ve used it.
Theory will take you only so far.”

At any rate, the Greek myth of Prometheus also features prominently in Oppenheimer as our titular protagonist continues to wrestle with what he has unleashed upon the world. He learns that there was, in fact, a spy within his circle at Los Alamos –Klaus Fuchs, a German refugee and physicist who managed to pass invaluable nuclear secrets to the Soviets, along with several other lower-level workers (like David Greenglass, a machinist at Los Alamos, whose espionage involved a string of other spies including the notorious case of his sister and her husband –Ethel and Julius Rosenberg). With such loose control of secret information, the Soviets are eagerly able to detonate an atom bomb using the work of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer then becomes powerless to stop the U.S. from developing a Hydrogen bomb (or “the super”) which sparks a highly volatile arms race which he believes will destroy the entire human race. He continues to lobby for arms control, openness, and regulation –but his voice often falls on deaf ears.

The film concludes by wrapping up the courtroom drama which has been unfolding this whole time. Oppenheimer has been brought before a closed-door congressional committee which seeks to destroy his reputation and humiliate him, in part for his refusal to support American nuclear arms build-up, but also, we later learn that the secret trial has been quietly orchestrated by an old friend, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), a shadowy villainous political man who serves on the Atomic Energy Commission. He lives by a cynical Machiavellian code: “Amateurs chase the sun and get burned. Power stays in the shadows.” He once began to grow suspicious of Oppenheimer and so asked J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to follow him, illegally tap his phones, listen-in on his attorneys, all of which the FBI was all-too eager oblige. The trial of Oppenheimer reveals his past affairs and affiliations with communist organizations, and it ultimately revokes his security clearance –a message that the U.S. government no longer trusts the man it once raised up as a national hero. The outcome of the trial utterly devastates Oppenheimer and he is never the same afterward for the rest of his life.

However, this trial is also bookended by a larger, more public courtroom drama. In future years, Lewis Strauss is nominated for a White House cabinet position (Secretary of Commerce) by President Eisenhower, but his nomination hearing devolves into an infamous referendum on his unfair treatment of Robert Oppenheimer as his machinations all come to light. In particular, a physicist named David Hill (Rami Malek) testifies strongly against Strauss. And an up-and-coming senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy is one of the deciding votes against Strauss’s nomination. Why did Strauss seek to destroy Oppenheimer? Apparently, Strauss is a vindictive man who holds grudges, and he desires to requite Oppenheimer for a minor embarrassment at a minor hearing which took place many years prior. He also internalized a particular moment in which Oppenheimer spoke privately with Einstein and instead of greeting Strauss, Einstein simply walked by with perturbed look on his face. In this moment, Strauss convinced himself that Oppenheimer had turned the whole scientific community against him –when in reality, Oppenheimer had just confessed to Einstein his fear that their research may have sparked a chain reaction that will destroy all life on earth. It hearkens back to the film’s opening scene: showing expansive ripples on water. In this respect –neither a hero nor a villain– Robert J. Oppenheimer stands apart as one of the most important people to ever live, whereas Strauss represents the unchanged pettiness and pride inherent within the human condition. Can we survive with both atom bombs and people in power like Strauss?   

This theme of vindictiveness or requital plays an important role in the film –the idea of striking back at those who have wronged you is what initially sparks the push for an atomic weapon in the first place. Therefore, there is a dark parallel between the shadowy politics of Lewis Strauss and the international quest for technological dominance. Domestic politics are shown to be similar to international politics. Fearful of a foreign power acquiring the upper hand, the government pushes the creation of a bomb, allowing scientists the rare privilege of testing the limits of theoretical physics –in this case, theory becomes reality. But the marriage of science and politics is an uneasy one in Oppenheimer –can humanity ever be trusted with such dangerous Promethean power? If so, who are the people who can be entrusted with it? Are we sure we know the difference between friends and enemies? “I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon. But I know the Nazis can’t. We have no choice.” There are always unintended consequences when it comes to technology and scientific innovation. While we believe in science and technology for bringing us the greatest of Goods, we are also forced to acknowledge that such optimism has also led to the greatest of evils in human history. Thankfully, Christopher Nolan does not endeavor to make a mere didactic “message” movie with Oppenheimer. Instead, he leaves us with an unsettling sense of awe, showing us that the atomic genie can never be placed back into the bottle again, reminding us that the world has changed permanently and there is no going back. Not since Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove has a film so hauntingly explored the dark side of the union between science and politics.

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