Oppenheimer

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

Opening Caption

I had seen trailers for Oppenheimer prior to viewing other movies this summer. The dramatic intensity portrayed in those clips intrigued me, so I eagerly anticipated seeing the full movie when it opened in theaters on Friday, July 21. I did see it during its opening weekend, and then I saw it again a week later. The film densely packs historical and scientific detail into its three hours, and it utilizes literary devices such as a frame story and flashbacks to develop the narrative. The combination of these elements can be confusing to a viewer who is not steeped in history or science. My first viewing felt like a race to keep up with who’s who and what’s what. My second viewing was much more relaxed, and the details fell into place.

The film begins by establishing the frames that surround the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his contemporaries developing the atomic bomb. Viewers see two hearings, which actually occurred at different points in history, juxtaposed with each other: Oppenheimer’s 1954 security clearance hearing and Lewis Strauss’s 1959 Secretary of Commerce confirmation hearing (Robert Downey Jr.). The hearings put both men in the position of having to defend their previous actions as a test of their loyalty to the United States and their trustworthiness with high levels of national security. The questions asked trigger flashbacks to earlier points in history that set Oppenheimer’s story in motion. Lewis Strauss, cunningly played by Downey, emerges as Oppenheimer’s nemesis.

The story rewinds to a younger Oppenheimer studying physics at Cambridge University where he is clumsy in the lab and poor at mathematics. He meets Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) who encourages him to study in Germany instead. Bohr also suggests that Oppenheimer think of physics like a piece of music, “hearing” whole concepts in his head rather than getting stuck on specific details. Director Christopher Nolan expertly incorporates compelling visuals and sound to represent the symphony of ideas percolating in Oppenheimer’s mind.

Oppenheimer returns to the United States, bringing his knowledge of the developing discipline of quantum mechanics with him, and he begins teaching at the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology. Outside of his professional life, he sympathizes with left-leaning political causes and socializes with known communists, his own brother and sister-in-law not excepted. Within the scope of the movie, he never officially joins the Communist Party, but communist social connections are always close at hand, including his lover Jean (Florence Pugh) and his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt). This perpetually casts a cloud of suspicion over his motives and his loyalties in spite of his insistence on being an independent thinker who is not constrained by one dogma.

News breaks that physicists abroad have split the atom, and Oppenheimer realizes that all physicists will soon come to the same conclusion: splitting the atom opens the door to creating a more powerful bomb. Oppenheimer and his colleagues fear that Nazi Germany will be the first to develop an atomic bomb, so they conclude that the United States must beat the Nazis in building one. They see it as a matter of national and global security in spite of the potential for catastrophic consequences. General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) selects Oppenheimer to lead the top secret Manhattan Project with the imperative of building an atomic bomb at top speed. Oppenheimer assembles a team of leading physicists to assist him in the task, admonishing them to go where the math leads, but also knowing that “theory will only take you so far.” Executing the tangible results of intellectual theories will take everyone into an unknown, new world, most likely inflicting harm on the just and the unjust.

Actor Cillian Murphy skillfully portrays J. Robert Oppenheimer as a man who invariably walks a razor fine line to determine and do what is right. Emily Blunt delivers an equally impactful performance in the role of his wife Kitty. She shrewdly chastises him for being too much of a martyr as if that will absolve his morally ambiguous actions in the public’s mind. However, through Murphy’s characterization, I empathized with Oppenheimer’s striving to be true to his intellect, academic pursuits, and social causes; creating the damnable but necessary “gadget” the U.S. government requires; and calculating the moral implications of his work simultaneously with refining mathematical equations and probabilities. Murphy’s portrayal clearly shows the emotional and mental toll of everything Oppenheimer experienced. Watching him navigate these impossible, intersecting realities made me consider several weighty questions: What does freedom cost? What are the real-world consequences or effects of ideas and theories? How do the institutions of power orchestrate and manipulate how individuals and ideas are used? Who is accountable for what is created and used?

Christopher Nolan has created a tour de force with this movie. I found it to be a brilliant masterclass on all fronts: story development, writing, casting, acting, cinematography, and thematic content. It is rated R for sexuality, nudity, and language. However, I do recommend it to adult viewers because it artfully captures J. Robert Oppenheimer’s work and asks us to evaluate whether, in the long view of history, he should be praised or punished.