Savannah Oakes’s review published on Letterboxd:
Seen at AMC in 70mm
I found myself back at the theatre to see Oppenheimer after a morning of drag brunch. Perhaps seeing such a boisterous activity beforehand was a subconscious decision for a pre-requisite pallet cleanser. I was about to put myself through the wringer again and I need something beforehand to cut the edge off. The truth is, Oppenheimer is heavy but not devastating, and, most importantly, entertaining and, at times, even bitterly funny. There was never any need to mentally prepare because the journey works no matter what state you’re in when you start.
This is largely because Nolan both directs and writes the opening of the film to bring you into the tone and inner qualms of the film with ease. The quick changes of time and place I found overwhelming and meandering in my first viewing, washed over me easily this time.
Oppenheimer boasts an ensemble that feels balanced. Even the two love-interest roles, which I noted in my first review felt unbalanced, work much more seamlessly in this second viewing. Their roles still orbit around Oppenheimer’s sun, like most Nolan women, but they have more agency than we’ve seen in the past. Yes, Pugh’s Jean Tatlock is the tragic ex who fulfills his usual "dead" love interest trope, but the transition from their relationship to Oppenheimer’s relationship with his wife, Kitty (Blunt), has more depth to it. Tatlock urges him to emerge from complacency, to take a stand for something. But she's mentally ill and unreliable, why would Oppenheimer listen to her? Sometimes the most important ideas from the "craziest" among us. Kitty's transition into Robert's life mirrors his need for stability, all the while his very existence and their marriage seem to drive Kitty into alcoholism. Everything he is and represents she, as an audience surrogate, knows is necessary but is frightened of. But, as she says, he's the only one that can do this job. For the intelligence and thematic resonance, I give him a pass and hope for even more development in the future.
The remaining ensemble consists of key players in Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, topped with the emaciated, tortured Cillian Murphy. Downey Jr is getting all the praise, and he deserves it, but Matt Damon is perfectly toeing the line from someone I shouldn't stand to someone I respect with ease.
Cillian Murphy's collaboration with Nolan is vastly more important than his other collaborations (like Zimmer or Michael Caine) as Murphy is always used differently but effectively while the others play or score to the same drum each time. Murphy's capture of Oppenheimer’s weaknesses, his predilection for contradiction (the crux of the plot), and his quiet martyrdom make what should be a profoundly unlikable character, a hero.
With the remaining ensemble, we see no better case for a casting director Oscar. The small roles, just shy of an extra, bring about actors from various careers as heartthrobs, teen stars, character actors, and on. To name a few: Josh Hartnett (in his 90s Kevin Costner era) as Lawrence who is a friend and an opposition to Oppenheimer, but not a foil, Alden Ehrenreich as an audience mirror in the “Fusion” as a humble Senate Aide (not even named), Macon Blair as Lloyd Garrison the empathetic but beaten Oppenheimer’s representation in his hearing, Tom Conti as Einstein in a small but penetrating role that is almost God-like when he appears (Oppenheimer’s conscience), and David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi a long time friend and fellow scientist to Oppenheimer who always makes sure he eats.
Without the impeccable casting of casting director John Papsidera and their recommendations to Nolan, all of these (mostly white) men would have been lost in the chaos, mere names with no touching point. Instead, they are all beating hearts with two exceptions. The underuse of Rami Malek in a role that could have easily been serviced by a lesser-known name and the miscasting of Dane DeHaan as a villain through and through with no nuance. The film is about villains hiding in the shadows, of hypocrisy and contradictions. Having an over-the-top evil like DeHaan’s Nichols detracts.
Its procedural storytelling gives both emotional and intellectual payoffs without the coldness of his previous films. The same triumph is there, but it is tinged with moralistic undercurrents: complacency versus action, the virtues, and vices of men, all painted expertly within mystery, intrigue, conspiracy, and hypocrisy. Told that way, it sounds like a Greek play. Prometheus, Oppenheimer’s parallel, who once stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity is an apt comparison and both play out in epic proportions.
Like Inception, there is a sense of Nolan bringing his own work into the film. We saw this most clearly in Inception where he creates the team with inspiration from film department heads. In this film, Oppenheimer is assembling a team, not unlike a director bringing together the crew for a film. They are working to create something no one has ever seen before–to create something some people have never and could never fathom. The film director and Oppenheimer parallel can’t go too deep as they create two very different end products but there are similarities.
However, Oppenheimer creates something that will ultimately be taken from him, used by people with more power and without his say. This happens often to filmmakers with their end product unless they get their director’s cut. While finishing the product, Oppenheimer faces moral implications for what the bomb could mean–some of the crew hold meetings over the creation of the bomb is completed. Directors are often faced with a moral quandary for the content of their films. Many directors that depict violence, real-life events, sex, etc. must consider if their lens will exploit, approve of, or look down, on all of these issues. Looking at Nolan’s experience. He suffered the loss of Heath Ledger who, perhaps, delved too deep into his role in The Dark Knight. I saw The Dark Knight Rises at a midnight showing the same night a mass shooting took place at a movie theatre in Colorado where the shooter was cited as having dyed his hair orange and was calling himself "The Joker”. Directing a project, being its creator, is a lot for one person to take and a director like Nolan will have seen the best and worst of those outcomes. Perhaps so strongly that he wrote the script in the first person, which is completely unheard of in the screenwriting field. He also did not shy away from including other directors among the cast (see: Jason Clarke, Kenneth Branagh, and Benny Safdie).
The editing of this film, which I thought abrasive and meandering on the first watch, revealed itself on the second viewing to be sheer brilliance. A lot of credit must go to Nolan and his decision to, seemingly, write for edit. From the script, it is clear he knew the way all these plot lines, moral reckonings, and character choices would contradict, relate and come together. Jennifer Lame (Tenet, Hereditary, Manchester by the Sea, etc.) took this footage and the framework of the script and made careful crafting look like jazz. The emotional resonance which Nolan usually lacks, if not found on the page or the footage, was bolstered by Lame who knows how to drip the thematic core into every scene and make it scream (see her other work: Hereditary and Manchester by the Sea).
Nolan, adapting the biography American Prometheus, navigates the journey of Oppenheimer from a non-participant, a frivolous idea-man without affiliations–-“a man with no dogma"–-into a tortured man in the third act, trying to make amends for what he helped create like a Dr. Frankenstein brought out to lecture and warn about his creation.
Nolan has crafted a near-perfect film, taking everything that audiences love about his previous films, and have criticized previously, and he has improved upon them producing a once in a lifetime experience about a man that changed everything we knew. The ripple effects of Oppenheimer’s work, demonstrated in bookends of rain creating concentric circles in a bond, will likely mirror the effects of Noaln’s work here. Much like Pulp Fiction in the 90s or Lawrence of Arabia in the 60s, this will be the pinnacle for many up-and-coming directors. Many will try and mimic what was accomplished here and many will not succeed. The success of Oppenheimer's and Nolan’s works are not easy to imitate, even harder to make into your own, and dangerous for the world and the filmmakers if attempted.
