The Great Salesman of Science
Oppenheimer is an intense, angry film that flies in the face of its director’s apolitical reputation
by Erin M. Brady
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Science fiction, as we know it today, rests on several different fears. The fear of takeover. The fear of immediate extinction, or just extinction in general. The fear of over-ambition. However, arguably the most important fear that sci-fi is based on is the fear of the unknown. Can we ever predict what will happen next at any given point in our lives? How can we know what risks are worth taking and which aren’t? These are difficult questions to answer and even more difficult fears to overcome, which means that sci-fi, more often than not, resonates across generations.
If there is one single non-writer that can be said to have contributed the most to the advent of contemporary science fiction, it’s J. Robert Oppenheimer. Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, Akira, and countless other entries in the genre were inspired either by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings or the nuclear warfare anxieties that followed. It should be no surprise, then, that director Christopher Nolan has made his biopic on the scientist, simply titled Oppenheimer, more akin to War of the Worlds than a more straight-laced docudrama like Good Night, and Good Luck. Sure, the so-called Father of the Atomic Bomb (played by Nolan favorite Cillian Murphy) may not be faced with an alien invasion, but the film may as well have one—switching primarily between his time overseeing the Los Alamos Laboratory and his 1954 security hearing, the film never lets up in intensity. The threat of what will and has happened, that being the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, is a heavy and damning weight on the film, something that may surprise those that have famously interpreted Nolan as apolitical.
This aspect of the film is precisely what makes Oppenheimer work. There is an anger present throughout that is unlike anything Nolan has done since his independent days. This anger has several textual targets, including the American military complex and the scientists that help fuel it, but it surprisingly directs much of it at Oppenheimer himself. For as much as it paints him as a troubled and disillusioned figure, a persona emboldened by a career-best performance by Murphy, it also questions that legacy. His initially flippant attitude toward the dangers of the atomic bomb expressed by his fellow scientists is shown in quick but heavy interactions, the writing of which strategically emphasizes these omens without sacrificing the pacing.
Unlike the film’s version of Oppenheimer and the various government and military officials he worked with, viewers won’t have the luxury of looking away.
Nolan and Murphy’s combined work shows that Oppenheimer, for as much as he wanted to seemingly right his wrongs, ultimately wasn’t much different from the military generals and politicians that wanted to discredit him. All of them treated the inevitability of civilian death as a non-issue, locking both themselves and the audience out of the aftermaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This prevailing lack of empathy is far from the centrist “good of humanity” angle many online feared it would take, with one scene in particular featuring then-President Harry S. Truman that is downright and purposefully haunting in its apathy. With Nolan’s dynamic filmmaking and Murphy’s Dorian Gray-esque performance, the poptimistic and hero-worshipping formula of the modern biopic implodes in haunting fashion.
Of course, pinning the successes of Oppenheimer onto two people doesn’t do it justice, especially given its expansive scope. The demonstrations of scientific power inter-spliced throughout crucial scenes (done to great effect by editor Jennifer Lame) prove why it needs to be seen in IMAX. On a similar note, the film’s sound design is arguably the boldest yet clearest a Nolan film has been in years, a refreshing change from the droning harshness of 2020’s Tenet. Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt also give some of the most interesting and dynamic performances of their careers.
However, one thing that Nolan has always seemingly lacked in one way or another is restraint, and that shows in Oppenheimer’s third act. While not poorly edited or written, it does end up caving a bit due to how much it’s trying to carry at once. (Perhaps this is due to how emotionally taxing and exhausting the film becomes once the bomb’s power is revealed, especially since its courtroom focus is compelling in and of itself.) Regardless, it does become more difficult to get through before it roars back to life to deliver a gut-wrenching final blow.
It’s hard to imagine where popular science fiction would be had it not been for J. Robert Oppenheimer the man. And while Oppenheimer the film is not a science fiction movie, it’s hard to watch its depiction of its subject matter and not think of how the genre developed. It’s a fascinating cycle to have seen unfold and one that will stick with you long after you watch it— because unlike the film’s version of Oppenheimer and the various government and military officials he worked with, viewers won’t have the luxury of looking away.
Erin M. Brady is a freelance entertainment critic and journalist. She has been published on Slash Film, The Daily Beast, Paste Magazine, and Dread Central among others.
