"Genius does not guarantee wisdom"

I'm grateful that Nolan has cited Oliver Stone's "JFK" as an influence on this movie, because like that incendiary, stylized, aggressively cross-told narrative I saw way back in 1991, this extraordinary movie also had me feeling intense exhilaration, exhaustion, elation and deeply conflicted feelings on what it is precisely the film-maker wants to tell his story about.
"JFK" I've always thought works best as the Grand Opera, with dashing, villainous, cackling and crazed characters coming in and out for small moments to help support the over-arching ideas of a single figure (Jim Garrison) who is forced to admit that his own suspicions over the murder of a President can only be resolved by embracing all the possibilities no matter how insane or twisted they appear.
There is such a strong sense of that energy here in "Oppenheimer". A film that ultimately succeeds when it is flying us through the multiple storylines of Oppy's conflicted world - his first rebellious forays into running classes on quantum physics, his much later trials after WWII over his suitability to hold national security clearance with the AEC, his moral hauntings over the implications his atomic bomb has created, his quagmire of keeping his head for so long in a place of "theoretical arguments" over the design of a device which was always intended to do nothing but kill and annihilate.
When Nolan has his movie racing effortlessly around these ideas and multiple characters and jumps in timelines, it's a pretty effortless and wholly cinematic thriller that works near perfectly for me. The first 2 sections of this had me riveted.
I can't say I was as embroiled in the closing hour where the story really only centres on the specific political trials of Robert Downey Jr's Lewis Strauss and the "secret" trial of Oppenheimer. Whereas the previous storylines had built collectively to the one moment where the "theoretical argument" of a nuclear device became writ-large over the deserts of Los Alamos with it's apocalyptic fires finally erupting free, this last section of the film seems to be another idea again. The "Trials" of Oppenheimer take place illustrating his very real fall from grace in the political landscape but also across the wider public perception, although not ever really was his reputation threatened from within the scientific community. It should be noted that these investigations into Robert's previous dabblings in communist ideas and his growing expressions of mistrust in how the U.S government might choose to use the Hydrogen Bomb (much deadlier than his Atom Bomb) move in parallel with an American administration caught fully in the web of McCarthyism and back-room back stabbings.
It doesn't necessarily destroy the film, as there is such a brilliant performance from Downey Jr to relish here and the need to explain how such a great and brilliant American Hero became so quickly associated with failure and loss does need to be put in some context, but there is a real narrative issue with giving us our payoff with the Big Bang halfway through and then not having any other new story beat to carry us to the end.
But compared to the clumsy script messes which Nolan has previously presented in films like "Tenet" and "Dark Knight Rises", the great thrill of "Oppenheimer" is just how clear and driven and focused it is.
It's lead by a genuinely brilliant performance from Cillian Murphy, all mood and mind released through just the stoicism of that face - through those mesmerising, melancholic eyes. Able support is given by Matt Damon (the "why-I-oughta" comic relief), Bennie Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Ken Branagh in another ropey accent performance and Casey Affleck in a brief but vital cameo. The two significant female leads in this tale are given scant thought by Nolan's script although the on-screen work by Florence Pugh (as mistress Jean Tatlock) and Emily Blunt (as wife Kitty) is incredibly strong. While there is always this problem in writing this sort of story where characters flit and flee from scene to scene and are never really afforded genuine development, it does seem rather facile that Nolan's two female protagonists are reduced to being a neurotic schizophrenic and a disillusioned alcoholic. Thankfully after populating every scene she's in with either a whiskey flask or a martini glass, Emily Blunt is finally given her stirring Oscar clip in a shred-ripping interrogation scene with moustache-twirling prosecuting lawyer Jason Clarke that proves that Nolan is intent on making a more populist movie here than he ever intended with "Interstellar".
It's mythical, epic, intoxicating cinema, blessed with incredible photography by Hoyte Van Hoytema, brilliant editing by Jennifer Lame and some of the best sound design I've ever heard.
The highlight for me, in the whole film, was the scene after they've detonated the bomb and Oppy goes to address the scientists and technicians who have worked their ass off for 3 years to bring Trinity to fruition. That scene, how it's cut - how they use the sound and particularly how they choose to use silence and that chalk-board scratching "crackle" that pervades the Robert Oppenheimer scenes is just genius.