Oppenheimer

MOVIE #1,425 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 03.08.24 It's funny. For a director who is most universally known if not beloved for his visual stylings, I can always sniff out a Nolan picture by its dialogue. I'm certain this also isn't an original thought, but it's the first and last thing I take away from his films. There's an almost Sorkin-level back and forth that, while rhythmic and (typically) well-written, has a way of distancing me from the material. When he's leaning into the metaphorical, if not the downright metaphysical, like in Interstellar and especially Inception, this really turned me off (I was able to mostly overlook it with Tenet, for some reason). But I'm pleased to say that this arena — the nonlinear, decades-spanning biopic — it worked as perfectly as it ever has (and likely ever will).

The murderers’ row cast of both A-listers and A+ character actors alike certainly helped. Though, as with The Social Network, for example, the nonfiction source material is simply the best weapon to deploy this kind of language-heavy offense. The notable cast is sadly too big to include tags* for here and that’s a shame because truly one of the great who’s who, featuring a slew of big names in mostly small, supporting roles. I’m posting this on the Friday before the Oscars because this looks poised to clean up as well as any film has in recent years. And I’m mostly fine with that. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece but it’s probably Nolan’s best film yet. As a Nolan agnostic if not downright skeptic myself, I can definitely say it’s at least my favorite thing he’s ever done.


* This is because the platform only allows for 200 characters worth of tags for some reason. But a few other actors I’d like to mention are David Krumholtz, Matthew Modine, Scott Grimes, Macon Blair, Tim DeKay, Alex Wolff, Josh Peck, Jack Quaid, James Urbaniak, James Remar, and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman.

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Oppenheimer is a 2023 epic biographical thriller film written, directed, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film chronicles the career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, with the story predominantly focusing on his studies, his direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and his eventual fall from grace due to his 1954 security hearing. The film also stars Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife "Kitty", Matt Damon as head of the Manhattan Project Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as United States Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss, and Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer's communist lover Jean Tatlock. The ensemble supporting cast includes Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh. It was released on July 11, 2023.