Sid V 🌪️’s review published on Letterboxd:
🧡 = Technical Merit (Direction | Cinematography | Production Design & Art Direction | Sound)
Oppenheimer?? I barely even know er!
***SPOILER ALERT***
According to photos of the cast (all 186 of them), there was a black dude in this, and that's a damn lie.
Truly epic by drama/biopic standards, Oppenheimer is a technically stunning achievement that nevertheless falters in two critical departments: writing and acting.
Nolan's clear shortcomings when it comes to delivering gut punch dialogue is painfully apparent throughout, and his attempts at impact feel inorganic, mechanical, and forced (the most cringe-y of these is a post-coital reciting of the film's most infamous quote as translated from Sanskrit from a random page of a random book randomly picked out by Florence Pugh, to eyerolling effect). Evident, also, is a clear block when it comes to writing either women or a third act (the trial segment being anticlimactic/ interminably overlong, and featuring a JFK mic-drop in the last few minutes which was criminally bad).
Acting, which, alongside writing, is the other pillar of a strong drama, is likewise puzzlingly weak, and really had me scratching my head at some of the casting decisions.
Matt Damon does not command the authority his character is meant to convey and is clearly miscast for the role. Robert Downey Jr. felt like he was acting in a different film altogether with his anachronistically modern sensibilities and nuances. Benny Safdie (for all his directing prowess) clearly does not have the chops for a role of this magnitude and felt more like an unintentionally funny caricature. Finally, for all the talk of Cillian Murphy's performance, I found, through no fault of his own, his character to be completely one-dimentional and showcasing little to no range. His is a one-note performance which, while intense, neither shifts nor evolves throughout the course of the film. Again, not a mark against the actor (who I think is generally great) and more speaking to the limitations of his role.
I will say that the living legend Gary Oldman was absolutely fascinating in the role of Harry Truman, and I wish he'd had more screen time. To a lesser extent, Emily Blunt also gave her role a fearless go, and Alden Ehrenreich was very good as well.
I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two noteworthy performances, but it's a tall order keeping tabs on this component when every single living actor working today has a role in the film.
All in all, technically excellent, but I'll take a smaller-scale-but-laser-focused character study over this any day.
Most (Un)Wanted Actor (Sh*t)List 💤
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