Oppenheimer

➤ Rated R
➤ Theaters
➤ S7 / V4 / L5

With his latest movie, Christopher Nolan, known for Inception, Interstellar, and his Dark Knight trilogy, turns his considerable skill as a writer and director to creating a biopic of the father of the atomic bomb, adapting the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He uses his signature style to give theoretical physics a sweeping grandeur, telling the story of the first nuclear weapon.

The movie features two distinct timelines—one in color and the other in black and white—which Nolan intercuts to create his narrative. The color timeline follows Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) from his days as a student through his leadership at the Los Alamos Laboratory designing the atomic bomb and testing it on July 16, 1945.

The black-and-white timeline follows Oppenheimer’s relationship with Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), the founding chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1954, the AEC held a hearing to investigate Oppenheimer’s past ties to communism, threatening to erase his contributions to the American cause. The hearing impacted Strauss’ own confirmation hearing when President Eisenhower nominated him for a Cabinet position.

In his movies, Nolan often employs this technique of competing timelines, and the movie deftly slides between narratives, though Oppenheimer and his cryptic ways remain at the center.

The backstory reveals a brilliant man who couldn’t always find his footing. As a young scholar, he proved himself unfit for the world-­renowned Cavendish Lab in England, and then he annoyed his classmates in Göttingen, Germany, so much they lobbied for his removal from the class.

His personal life was fraught with drama. His politics embraced socialism, a demerit that could be overlooked as long as he delivered the bomb. Oppenheimer earns its R rating for graphic depictions of his liaisons, an unfortunate inclusion in a story that is otherwise an essential chapter in American history.

Whether he was just proud and incorrigible or was, in fact, a Soviet sympathizer is one moral conflict that soon gives way to another: Oppenheimer feels triumph over his scientific breakthroughs, but the bomb’s potential for mass death unsettles him. “You are the man who gave them power to destroy themselves, and the world is not prepared,” fellow physicist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) utters while visiting Los Alamos. Oppenheimer decides he must ­prepare humanity.

The movie packs a lot of historical and scientific material into three hours, and Nolan’s story presses ahead with ominous energy. Oppenheimer has an ice-cold start and a blazing finish.

One curious choice is Nolan’s sound design. His past work has been criticized for muffled dialogue, overpowered by the score. Oppenheimer is no different, but his masterful storytelling is on full display.

Biopics over the years

• Madame Curie / 1943
• Spartacus / 1960
• Lawrence of Arabia / 1962
• Patton / 1970
• Gandhi / 1982
• Schindler’s List / 1993
• Hotel Rwanda / 2004
• Sophie Scholl: The Final Days / 2005
• Hidden Figures / 2016