Movie reviews haven’t been a staple of my newsletter, and won’t be in the future either, because I usually don’t like movies, or even TV shows. When Jay and I look for something to watch on TV, it’s almost always documentaries, and even then, it’s really hard to find something actually watchable. Most documentaries are full of corny reenactments, such as people in well-pressed period costumes pretending to be Romans riding in chariots, but really looking exactly like modern people at a Halloween party. And of course, there is a narrator breathlessly trying to hold the audience’s interest, in our case almost always unsuccessfully.
So, I haven’t been inside a movie theater since before Covid, but Jay, my husband, and Jay Marshall, my oldest stepson, both wanted to see Oppenheimer, and I was persuaded to go along. After a very fast lunch at Legal Seafood (we were running late), we headed for the IMAX theater inside Jordan’s Furniture. Unfortunately, this movie was sold out, and we were amongst the very last to arrive, so we found seats right in the middle of the theater, but in “neck kink” territory, the second row from the front of the theater. We settled into our seats, each with our $3.50 bottled water from the concession stand, and got as comfortable as possible.
So, with all of the above against me enjoying this movie, plus the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about Robert Oppenheimer, and less, if possible, about physics, I was more than pleasantly surprised. This was a tremendously entertaining and enlightening movie, and had my complete attention, despite its three hour length, its complexity, and some actual discussions around physics. When afterwards we discussed the movie, Jay said he was surprised I enjoyed it, and wondered why.
We came to the conclusion that this movie was really an extremely well done documentary, presented, directed, and acted in such a way that you never doubted its accuracy, but also never lost interest. Oppenheimer was portrayed by Cillian Murphy, an actor I’d never heard of but perfect for the part, Robert Downey Jr. was Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s enemy pretending to be his friend, and Matt Damon was great as the general in charge of the Manhattan Project (the project to create the atomic bomb).
In my opinion, however, the real star of this movie was Christopher Nolan, the Director. He somehow put this very complex story about a very complex man together in such a way that at the end you felt like you had an understanding of the man Oppenheimer, and the times in which this took place. That wasn’t easy to do without making a ten hour movie. It’s as if all scenes were not a second too long, yet got the point across. This is why the movie ‘works’, but also why it’s complex and confusing at points. If I were to see it again (which is possible because I know our youngest two, Adam and Erin, would enjoy it), I’m sure I’d pick up on things I’d missed the first time. Of course, if I were to see it again, I’d also arrive at the theater earlier, so as to not have to sit in the second to the front row. *UPDATE: We ARE going to see it again, tickets already bought for this weekend.
The general plot of the movie is two fold–Oppenheimer, the scientific genius as a World War II hero and the father of the atomic bomb, and Oppenheimer, the accused communist sympathizer in the aftermath of the world war. Interspersed throughout is his personal life, which is chaotic, but gives a sense of who he was.
Don’t miss the Citizen Kane/rosebud type moment at the end of the movie, keeping in mind Citizen Kane was probably based on William Randolph Hearst and to a lesser extent, Henry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine. It’s subtle but you’ll find out why Lewis Strauss hated Oppenheimer, and tried to bring him down.
This movie was filmed in IMAX, the most high definition film available (the atom bomb test scene was amazing in IMAX). The movie is based on the book American Prometheus, a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Also, if you are sometimes squeamish like I am, and don’t want to view actual, extremely graphic footage from World War II and the bombing of Japan in high definition, it’s not a concern. Surprisingly, there aren’t any, probably because they weren’t necessary to the movie’s flow, and are already readily available to anyone that wants to view them. Check out the trailer below. I’m eager to hear what people think of the movie~~I didn’t expect to like it, and I sure didn’t expect I’d be planning to see it twice.