Enlarge / Cillian Murphy offers an Oscar-worthy efficiency because the “father of the atomic bomb” in Oppenheimer (credit score: YouTube/Common Footage)
I will admit I had my doubts after I first heard that director Christopher Nolan was planning to make a movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the analysis effort to develop the primary atomic bomb as a part of the Manhattan Undertaking. This is likely one of the most well-documented intervals of 20th century American historical past, in spite of everything, and there have already been so many books, movies, and TV collection concerning the race for the bomb, of various high quality. (As at all times, let me give a shout-out to Manhattan, a stellar fictional collection that was tragically canceled after simply two seasons.) How would Nolan make this very well-trodden materials his personal?
I needn’t have fretted. With Oppenheimer, Nolan has gifted us a very distinctive, unflinching, nuanced portrait of the enigmatic, sophisticated man who spearheaded the Manhattan Undertaking and subsequently ran afoul of the “red-baiting” politics of the McCarthy period. Technically it is a biopic, nevertheless it would not play like one. It is extra like Nolan fastidiously chosen varied threads operating by way of Oppenheimer’s life and wove them into richly textured tapestry that in some way transcends these uncooked supplies. The result’s pure visible poetry.
(Spoilers under, though that is very well-documented historical past.)
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