Oppenheimer (2023) 78/100
I avoided watching this film for the longest time, but a brief membership to Amazon Prime offered me the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. If I've learned one thing from the many years of watching and writing about films, it's that popular opinion can be jaded by the "jump on the bandwagon" mentality of a lot of viewers. Christopher Nolan has always been for me, a director who offers up more style than substance. And at the beginning of the film, he slipped into his comfortable habit of non-linear storytelling. I said to myself, "Here we go again". But then Nolan abandoned his favorite method of filmmaking and the story started to suck me in. When the film stays on course with the development of the atomic bomb, it is interesting and riveting. But once the bomb is detonated, which I was surprised wasn't that exciting from a CGI viewpoint, the film devolves into conjecture. And it doesn't work. I was confused at first by Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as Lewis Strauss, the man who helped to bring Oppenheimer down from his lofty perch. At the start he's portrayed as a rather subdued individual seeking a cabinet position in Eisenhower's first term. But once the film gets to the Trinity testing of the bomb and the post-war ramifications of its development, Nolan flips the switch on him and he's seen as a petty, power hungry bureaucrat. Which in real life, he was. Why didn't Nolan just stay with this throughout the film you may ask? Because as I mentioned earlier, Nolan is more style than substance and for the most part, is a weak screenwriter. As the film ended, I pondered what a talented screenwriter like Aaron Sorkin would have done with the book this film is based upon, American Prometheus. Sorkin would have found a way to keep Strauss' character true to his history.
Would I recommend this film to anyone who knows nothing about J. Robert Oppenheimer? Yes and no. Yes, in that the sequences in Los Alamos will give you a pretty good insight into what took place during World War II. And no, because if you want to know about Oppenheimer's crucifixion by Strauss and the Atomic Energy Commission, then watch the PBS documentary The American Experience: The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer from 2009, directed by David Grubin, with David Straithairn as Oppenheimer. It's completely fact based and there's not a whiff of conjecture.
