Josh Bumpas’s review published on Letterboxd:
Oppenheimer needs no introduction, so let’s just jump right in:
THE GOOD
The visuals are staggeringly good. I saw this in IMAX 70mm (my first time ever seeing a movie projected on film!!) and it might be the most impressive viewing experience I’ve ever had. The sequences shot in IMAX were gorgeous and absolutely mesmerizing, the details were crisp, the grain sublime. And the way Nolan visualizes the act of science is truly a step above anything I’ve ever seen dealing with this subject.
Cillian Murphy gives the performance of a lifetime as the towering historical figure J. Robert Oppenheimer. There’s a quiet charisma behind his portrayal that gives Oppenheimer both a sense of ambiguity and purpose, while effectively communicating his ability to turn his knowledge into leadership. Crucially, Oppenheimer comes out of this film as neither demonized nor celebrated necessarily, and Murphy’s portrayal nails that middle ground as the character vacillates between his morals and his loyalties.
Robert Downey Jr. is almost guaranteed to get an Oscar nom from this film. His performance is shifting and layered as he becomes the impetus of conflict in the final act, and it’s the best acting we’ve seen from him since the beginning of his Marvel era.
The middle hour of the film is pure dynamite. This is when the acting, editing, sound design, and screenplay all reach a certain harmony and the film just moves. It culminates in the signature sequence of the film, one that genuinely floored me and which might be the most intense thing I’ve seen in theaters this year.
However, this leads us to…
THE NOT-SO-GOOD
Oppenheimer is dense. And while this normally wouldn’t be too much of an issue, the screenplay doesn’t give much time for the story to breathe while juggling three different timelines, and the amount of names, places, and events that fly by complicate things considerably. The editing across the first two hours keeps things moving for the most part, but the film almost completely loses momentum in the third hour after dropping the timeline strand with the main driving force.
This structural choice is baffling to me; though the climax that comes in the final 15 minutes is pretty thrilling (thanks largely to RDJ’s killer performance), I can’t help but think how much more effective it would have been if everything leading up to it in the third hour wasn’t so….boring. I probably need to see it again, but between getting lost in the sequence of events and sorely missing any kind of momentum towards the end really affected my enjoyment of the film itself.
Also… how on earth do you waste a talent like Emily Blunt? She gets one brief moment to shine, but she’s otherwise stuck in the most thankless of roles and it’s honestly egregious. In a movie packed with great performances and an over-abundance of characters, this is really a sore spot.
Oppenheimer is a tough one for me to review fully. It’s taken almost a full day for me to synthesize my thoughts, and even then I don’t feel like I have a full grasp on them. The theatrical experience was top-tier, five-star stuff; the film itself—not so much. But I can’t justify giving this anything less than four stars, because it truly is quite an achievement for Nolan. Perhaps on a second viewing I’ll be able to better sort out my thoughts.
