FILM
OPPENHEIMER
OR, HOW CHRISTOPHER NO LAN LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND FILM THE BOMB
Father of the atomic bomb: Cillian Murphy stands out as J. Robert Oppenheimer;Distrusting government official Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr); Oppenheimer shows Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) and his team around; ‘Sharp-witted’ Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt).
★★★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 180 MINS
DIRECTOR Christopher Nolan
CAST Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke
PLOT While being interrogated about supposed communist links, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) reflects on his achievements — and mistakes — as the architect of the atom bomb.
OPPENHEIMER IS NOT an easy movie. To say its subject matter and theme are inherently downbeat is something of an understatement. It flings you into a very specific, crowded world and refuses to hold your hand, with a notable absence of date or location-providing subtitles. It is three hours long, densely packed with info-rich dialogue, and mostly plays out, to paraphrase one character, in “shabby little rooms far from the limelight”. Its story unfurls along two oscillating lines — one titled “Fission”, in vivid colour; the other titled “Fusion” in high-contrast black-and-white — and cuts between their beats and revelations like an anxious channel hopper. It is, of course, a Christopher Nolan movie.