HKFanatic’s review published on Letterboxd:
Was not my intention to take almost a month to get around to seeing Christopher Nolan's latest in theaters, but it's a testament to "Oppenheimer" that I arrived to it after weeks and weeks of praise and hype...and I still found myself bowled over by the movie. The one thing that I wasn't prepared for, despite skimming much of the online discourse: I want to call this Nolan's first horror film. The moments that are lingering with me the most are the sequences in which the characters' inner turmoil punctures their reality in visceral ways: that horrifying scene in the gym that everyone has rightly been talking about or Emily Blunt watching her husbands' affair play out in the middle of a closed room hearing. And no doubt there are parts of this historical narrative that just turn your stomach with a character’s craven display of power or disregard for human life.
The cast is colossal and much of the fun is just picking out your personal favorites. Robert Downey Jr.'s performance is every bit as tremendous as it's been touted, but somehow middle age has turned Josh Hartnett into a matinee idol and I want him to headline his own throwback pulp franchise immediately; and while I've never been a big Casey Affleck fan, his character gets perhaps the best introduction here, with Damon breathlessly intoning, "This is a man who's killed Communists with his own hands."
Yet even with so many stars onscreen, the driving creative forces here still feel like composer Ludwig Göransson's score, which I've already listened to and enjoyed on its own on Spotify, and Nolan's collaboration with editor Jennifer Lame. Together, they create a three hour film that feels sprawling yet propulsive and focused, and exceedingly complex without ever losing the audience in its many time jumps. "The Dark Knight" will always loom large, but let's say I'm open to arguments that this is indeed Nolan's finest effort yet.
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