AFTERSHOCK: a few words in appreciation of "Oppenheimer"

 

"OPPENHEIMER"
Written, Produced and Directed by Christopher Nolan
**** (four stars)
RATED R

To begin, I saw this film opening weekend as the world seemingly was caught up in the throes of "BarbieHeimer," as Christopher Nolan's latest epic shared the same debut weekend as Director Greta Gerwig's exceedingly anticipated "Barbie." 

As we all know now, the counter programming paid off even greater than I would imagine anyone had hoped or anticipated as both films are nominated for Oscars (shame on the Academy for not nominating Gerwig for Best Director as "Barbie" clearly did not direct itself--and furthermore, if there are going to be 10 nominees, then I feel that the Best Director section should follow suit accordingly...but I digress...) and each film set their respective box office charts afire and then some. I did not write a review for "Oppenheimer" at that time because life, such as it is and as it was in the Summer of 2023, was fraught with too much of itself for me to  find the proper time and space to sit, ruminate and compose a posting that could represent what was a demonstrably overwhelming experience. 

That being said, I have recently watched the film for a second time and am also already finding myself returning for a third viewing and it remains as voluminous of an experience as that first time. Yet, for these subsequent screenings at home, I am able to utilize the gift of subtitles to assist me with the cavalcade of names and locations that evaded me the first time. Additionally, I regret, especially as Christopher Nolan remans one of my favorite current filmmakers and his films exist as true cinematic events, this film just might be the last time I attend a Nolan film in the movie theater as his already controversial sound mixes inspired me to wear ear plugs at the movies for the first time and even then, the film was unbearably, unpleasantly loud and therefore, more than distracting.

With that admission out of the way, I now feel free to express that out of a filmography whose artistic consistency is of an uncommonly high quality, Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" has amassed what I feel is his greatest achievement to date, clearly one of 2023's best films as well as one of the top films of this current decade in cinema. It is a work that has only grown in its power with subsequent viewings as it is one that transcends mere biopic and becomes a morality play about the nature of humanity in its clash between inspiration and hubris combined with the dire warning that our own potential extinction will undoubtedly arrive at our own hands. 

Our thirst for knowledge and discovery runs up against our equal sense of self importance, self preservation, competition, avarice, exploitation, a disregard for anything beyond our own personal desires, and quest for absolute power consequences be damned all fuels Nolan's standard non-linear narrative (or dual narrative) and simultaneously tight and sprawling screenplay into a cinematic canvas that suggests an amalgamation of Milos Forman's "Amadeus" (1984), Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1993), 1970's conspiracy thrillers, most notably Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" (1974) and the likes of Terrence Malick and Stanley Kubrick at their most esoteric, with the superlative aid of Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema's visual sheen and Composer Ludvig Goransson's pulsating, urgently paranoid score. 

At the core rests Cillian Murphy in the titular role as he delivers his career best performance to date, so impressive as to how interior of a performance it actually is (he constantly made me think of a hybrid of David Bowie--the alien-esque eyes--and David Byrne--the physicality). Additionally, Robert Downey Jr. as Oppenheimer's adversary Admiral Lewis Strauss, has raised his own bar in an already impressive filmography with his career best performance to date. With Murphy, I felt that Christopher Nolan firmly placed us within a exceptional mindset that was also neither here nor there as this interpretation of the theoretical physicist was that of a restless mind speeding with such alacrity that again, consequences, whether personal or global, were never fixated upon in the present moment as he was always thinking about what could be instead of what actually is. 

After watching the film again, I believe that any confusion that I felt within that first viewing concerning the aforementioned cavalcade of names, dates, locations, etc...was purposeful due to the fever dream pacing of this hurtling three hour film as it never finds moments of rest, as we are also dealing with a figure wrestling with anxiety and mental health issues running dangerously against his incredible intelligence. There is no time to slow down, so we hang on tightly, intensity building wondering if what we are seeing and hearing is indeed actually happening as our planet teeters on its own conclusion.   

Christopher Nolan once remarked that he feels his films are building blocks towards each other and to that end, "Oppenheimer" is yet another character study of a taciturn, obsessive man yet this film, above all of the others within his oeuvre is his most Herculean.