‘Oppenheimer’: The Christopher Nolan movie that should be burned from the records
Christopher Nolan is often talked about as though he is gods gift to cinema, commanding a strong grasp over Hollywood after creating modern blockbusters that appeal to both mainstream audiences and film lovers. From the dizzying multi-layered worlds of Inception, to the surprisingly emotional heart of Interstellar and the legendary performances in The Dark Knight, the director continues to capture our attention through his ability to create spectacles and stories out of seemingly impossible concepts, somehow defying the logic of the real world to bend new ones to his will.
But while the director has built a huge fan base, with hordes of viewers who would flock to the cinema to see him direct a soap commercial, his work represents a very specific style of cinema that is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, creating boyish films that are generally pretty hollow, especially when it comes to his writing. While this works for some of his films, it most definitely did not work for one in particular, which is one that I would personally like to see banished from cinema.
Nolan has often been criticised for his writing, with many people praising his ability to create unique worlds, concepts and visual spectacles but noting how his films can fall short due to poor character development and writing, especially regarding his female characters. However, while his poor writing is less obvious in films that focus on the action and concepts behind it, such as Inception and Tenet, it is detrimental to others, especially to Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer follows the story of J Robert Oppenheimer’s involvement in the creation of the first atomic bomb during WWII, supposedly shining a light on his moral dilemma and conscience after doing so and grappling with its devastating impact.
While there are some bits to be enjoyed in the film, such as Emily Blunt’s killer monologue towards the end when she is finally allowed some screen time and the silent scene where they first set off the bomb, Nolan is not skilled enough as a writer to bring nuance to a story as complex as this one, with the director creating cringey montages in which sparks and atoms fly across the screen and spends the whole film focussing on the process of actually creating the bomb, with very little that explores the consequences of this and Oppenheimer’s so-called moral dilemma about creating such a destructive weapon.
The extent of Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil is shown during one scene where he imagines seeing the faces of all the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the entire film leading towards one brief moment that poorly tries to capture the height of his moral conflict and then spirals into a courtroom drama that drags on for far too long. As well as this, the female characters in the story are completely pointless, and it feels insulting for performers as talented as Blunt and Florence Pugh to essentially just play dated archetypes of the drunken wife and ‘deeply fucked up but incredibly sexy’ love interest.
While Nolan creates something that visually matches the scope of the story, his writing is not nuanced enough to provide the weight needed for such a loaded true story, with many fans expecting something more detailed that explores Oppenheimer’s battle between the scientific achievement of his work versus its deadly human impact. Ultimately, Nolan’s portrayal of this story leads something so charged to feel flat and devoid of substance, ruining a story that has the potential to be so much grittier and complex.
