Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)

Saw it last night and i hate to say it but I didnt enjoy it nearly as much as I expected. Nolan just went in a completely different direction with this than I thought he would. It was senate state hearing heavy and I think Nolan made a big mistake going with that angle. The Genesis of the Atomic bomb is an absolutely fascinating story but I feel like there was very little screen Time given to exactly how they made this thing. It was like, get some scientists together in the desert and then.......we're at trinity! A better and more interesting story would've been a race against Heisinberg and his crew. And then show the bombing mission at the end of it all. I feel that was a strange choice not to let the audience see things play themselves out. There was so much room in there for philosophy, for God, for a study of genius but that was all traded in favor of courtroom drama, which wasn't very dramatic because it was security clearance at stake and not a matter if jail. Cillian Murphy is excellent and so is RDJ but I think Emily blunt steals every scene she's in. She is absolutely brilliant. As some have said, it's too long, I mean the build up to trinity was thrilling but then......back to the hearings!!! This was the point where they should've been off to Hiroshima for the bombing mission. They lost the audience at that point, I could literally feel this in the Cinema.

But as a spectacle the film lost momentum at that point. Like I mentioned, you could literally feel people lose interest in the film when they jumped to more hearings.

100%.

I think it also gives more weight because the viewer has their imagination to consider the consequences, instead of being drip fed newsreel images.

I do agree there could have been more discussion on the philosophy of the whole thing. It seemed like it all started out as a few scientists throwing ideas out there and then getting excited about where that could take them in hypotheticals. Then the military caught wind of it and it all got too real too quick.

There was one scene where Oppenheimer says something along the lines of 'Theory will only get you so far' when they're discussing the possible chain reaction and 'almost zero' chance of it happening. I think the film showed the difference between the scientists who wanted to explore possibilities and push the boundaries of possibility and the politicians/military who were happy to take responsibility and put those theories into practice and disregarding the humanitarian consequences by wrapping them up in patriotism and justification for war.

Yeah, I never felt the film was trying to glorify the bombings or even vindicate or exonerate Oppenheimer himself. It's steadfastly critical of the whole project imo, and I came away from it feeling like Oppenheimer got involved with it initially for quite short-sighted and even egotistical reasons and it spiralled out of his control. His attempts to still his own conscience later on just comes across as a desperation to be martyred, which his wife's comment towards the end needles at. It's an interesting character study of which I wanted a bit more character and less political scheming.

Also yes, there is lots out there on the Japanese perspective on the bombs and the war in general. Grave of the Fireflies might be one of the best war films there is.

Dialogue was hard to hear over the music...

Not in The Lighthouse it wasn't, never had any problem hearing a single part of dialogue.

Might have been a cinema problem.

He fixed that in this movie, rarely had an issue with dialogue this time round.

An excellent interpretation of the source material, leaned more on the tragedy than the triumph side of the man.

The film flew by and as said here the actors are all in top form. Oppenheimer himself did little of the science of the bombs so its right to not show much of that.

Spot on