Oppenheimer (5/10)
by Tony Medley
3 hours
R.
When I learned that Christopher Nolan had written and directed a film about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) that lasted three hours, John McEnroe’s immortal words flooded my mind, “You cannot be serious!” Alas, it’s true. But, in order to present a sympathetic picture of this highly controversial left-leaning scientist who led the team at Los Alamos in developing the Atomic Bomb, Nolan has flooded the torturous first two hours of the film with confusing flashbacks and flash forwards (some in B&W), enough to make the viewer dizzy as well as perplexed (can’t modern filmmakers make a linear film anymore?).
Nolan’s preconception forces him to present President Truman (Gary Oldman) and Special Counsel Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) as heavies. An example is when Robb confronts Oppenheimer with indisputable evidence that he lied, Nolan manipulates the scene so that the viewer sympathizes with Oppenheimer.
Why talented Emily Blunt is listed as a co-star is puzzling because as Oppenheimer’s wife (who had been a member of the Communist Party in the ‘30s), she rarely appears and is in only one meaningful scene at the tail end.
The left is gonna love this film, so it will probably be the subject of breathlessly adulatory reviews and up for multitudes of awards, but I found it slow, confusing, disjointed, and more predispositional than objective.
The film is sort of based on the McGuffin of what did Einstein (Tom Conti) say to Oppenheimer in a meeting shown near the start of the film. In fact, Einstein and Oppenheimer were neighbors, but more acquaintances than friends. What did Einstein say to Oppenheimer in the film’s alleged meeting? We don’t know the validity of what Nolan writes in the script, but one of the few quotes of Einstein about Oppenheimer extant is, “The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn’t love him — the United States government.”
It picks up speed, however, during the last hour when Oppenheimer is questioned by Robb during a hearing challenging his security clearance. The acting is uniformly superb thanks to exceptional casting, including Robert Downey, Jr. as Lewis Strauss, another heavy, and Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves who picked Oppenheimer for the job.
Oppenheimer was a complicated character. This film doesn’t uncomplicate anything (and maybe that’s appropriate), but Nolan could have used a strong editor with sharp scissors to make this shorter and more entertaining.
Tony Medley is a columnist, and MPAA-accredited film critic His reviews are published in The Larchmont Chronicle, Telicom Magazine, The Tolucan Times, CWEB.com, robinhoodnews.com, on Rottentomatoes.com, the Movie Review Query Engine, and at www.tonymedley.com. Tony Medley holds the rank of Silver life Master, is an American Contract Bridge League Club Director, and has won regional and sectional titles. An attorney, he received his B.S. from UCLA, where he was sports editor of UCLA’s Daily Bruin, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
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