Oppenheimer

 Here is the plot of Oppenheimer (2023):  a gruff general (played by Matt Damon) recruits a Jewish physicist named J. Robert Oppenheimer to work on the government's project to build an atomic bomb.  (The German's. who are ravaging Europe, are said to be two years ahead of the Americans in this desperate arm's race.) For some inexplicable reason, Oppenheimer with his brother, Frank, own a ranch near Santa Fe, at a place called Los Alamos.  A makeshift town is constructed in that place.  Oppenheimer with his scientists and technicians successfully engineer and build the bomb.  The weapon is successfully tested and, then, dropped on Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,  During the project, Oppenheimer, who is quite articulate, mocked a bureaucrat named Lewis Strauss -- the slur had something to do with acquiring isotopes from Norway or Sweden.  After the War, Strauss takes revenge by conspiring with others to deny Oppenheimer renewal of his security clearance -- this involves a contested quasi-judicial hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission.  Oppenheimer's wife and some of his colleagues then retaliate by humiliating Strauss when he seeks confirmation to the cabinet position of Secretary of Commerce.  Strauss is denied confirmation.  Oppenheimer, now old, is given a testimonial honor by the President.  The substance of a conversation that Oppenheimer had with Albert Einstein at Princeton many years earlier is finally revealed in the penultimate scenes in the movie.  The picture is three hours and seventeen minutes long.

Christopher Nolan who directed Oppenheimer seems to have sensed that this plot told chronologically isn't very interesting and, indeed, completely devoid of drama.  We know that the atomic bomb worked and that it didn't devour the atmosphere and burn the planet up as Edward Teller, another physicist thought might happen.  We know how the War turned out and the argumentative proceedings involving Oppenheimer's security clearance and, then, Strauss' confirmation hearing are utterly devoid of interest; these bureaucratic problems are the very definition of an anti-climax but they are the film's focus in its last hour and, indeed, most of the movie pivots around these scenes.  Nolan compensates for the very thin and inconsequential aspects of the narrative but devising an elaborate system of flash-backs and flashforwards further decked out in showy imagery of huge fireballs exploding, black holes sucking stars into their guts, molecules spinning around in their orbits, boiling plasma and other visually spectacular, but hollow, special effects that have nothing to do with the story and that merely punctuate the several hundred short scenes, mostly randomly shuffled in time and space, that make up the movie.  Everyone runs around in a frantic way with the camera chasing after them or panning ahead of them as in TV shows like The West Wing.  Oppenheimer always looks very worried as do most of his colleagues -- of course, they are frightening by the booming Dolby soundtrack and constant blasts and fireballs interpolated into the film. There are probably eighty or so speaking parts and most viewers will have no idea who is talking or making points at various moments in the movie.  Nolan, who wrote the script, seems to understand what is happening, but most people in the audience will have no idea what is going on.  (I saw the movie with a baffled group of senior citizens who were aware of the movie's rave reviews and diligently watched up the bitter end -- but when the closing titles rolled, these folks ran for the exits as fast as possible.)  It's very hard to care about the bureaucratic conflicts in the film's last hour -- the best response, I suppose, is a shrug of the shoulders; that is, who cares?  

All of the scenes in the film are very effectively staged and the explosion of A-Bomb when tested is impressive, but completely devoid of any real suspense.  The acting is uniformly superb.  The viewer believes that the various belligerent military men, venal politicians, and nerdy scientists shown in the movie are accurately portrayed.  Cillian Murphy, in particular, looks very much like the real Oppenheimer and cuts a striking and enigmatic figure on the screen -- he paces around in fedora, rail-thin, and always smoking a cigarette.  We have no idea what motivates him, an aspect of the movie sometimes proclaimed to be one of the film's strengths -- but this is making lemonades out of lemons; there is nothing in the picture remotely as striking as, let's say, George C. Scott's portrayal of General Patton.  In fact, Oppenheimer's mysterious motivations, seemingly shifting from scene to scene, evidence laziness on the part of the screenwriter -- Nolan has substituted enigma for revelation of character.  (An example of the screenwriter's negligence is a revelation about twenty minutes before the end of the movie that Oppenheimer is having a sexual affair with an attractive blonde that he we see him chatting up at a few parties earlier in the picture -- this affair is used as evidence of Oppenheimer's moral turpitude, but we don't know what's going on until someone brings up the issue in one of the interminable hearing scenes near the end of the picture.)  In fact, Oppenheimer's real offense seems to be that he was a Communist or actually "fellow traveler" if not a card-carrying commie in the thirties and he imprudently supported petitions to unionize lab workers and professional physicists and other scientists, surely a quixotic objective,  also around the time of the early forties.  (Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty was an actual Communist until 1936 and when she is belabored on this point, she gives the chief prosecutor the "what for" with her quick-witted and biting riposte to this line of questioning.  She's portrayed aa much more savvy and aggressive than the rather dim-witted Oppenheimer who is depicted as a a political naif.  Kitty has reason to be bitter in this film; Oppenheimer was apparently a compulsive womanizer and he has another girlfriend who looks a lot like Kitty (except she's often shown bare-breasted) who kills herself at some point, causing great distress to the hero and, even, greater distress to poor Kitty when he mopes around mourning his mistress' demise.  Most of the film is a confusing jigsaw puzzle with its fractured chronology and it seems that more than a few fragments of the puzzle have been left out of the film.  I have to confess that I was unable to work up any real interest in Oppenheimer's torments after the War.  There's an epigraph that says that Prometheus (the movie is based on a book called American Prometheus) was tormented for bringing fire to humans by having his liver perpetually chewed out by an eagle.  Oppenheimer is tortured by being subjected to petty machinations by bickering bureaucrats like Strauss (played well by Robert Downey, Jr.) -- this is hardly much in the way of torment.  Some aspects of the movie are ridiculously inept from a technical standpoint.  At the climax of the scenes involving the fight over Oppenheimer's security clearance, Nolan ramps up the volume of the soundtrack to a point so that you can't understand what anyone is saying -- although this is supposed to be the high point of administrative procedure scenes.  He even dissolves everything in a brilliant flare of white light, simulating the blast of the A-Bomb.  Why?  I presume it's because nothing of any significance is really happening in these scenes and Nolan has to create a false climax for something that is otherwise inconsequential.   

In an early scene in the movie, Oppenheimer speaks to Albert Einstein at Princeton,  Seemingly Einstein gives him some mysterious advice and, then, stalks off to the dismay of Strauss, a fellow Jew, who would like his two protegees to make nice with one another.  The movie frequently reverts to this scene and we are led to wonder what exactly Einstein told Oppenheimer that was so meaningful and portentous.  At the end of the movie, we learn that Einstein told our hero that, one day, he would be invited to a testimonial dinner, praised insincerely, and, then, given some kind of meaningless award.  And we see this happen in the movie's last five minutes.  But so what?  Again, the reaction is shrug one's shoulders -- this is the tiny mouse that this huge, expensive mountain of a movie has given birth to.  Recognizing that this revelation is totally anti-climactic, Nolan stages an impressive scene of missiles streaking through the atmosphere and Teller's H-Bombs exploding all over the planet while a serrated saw of bright red fire eats through the earth.  When you've got nothing meaningful to say, go ahead and stage a gratuitous (if impressive) scene of the end of the world.   For the last six months, the Internet has been buzzing with the word that Oppenheimer is the greatest film of the 21st century -- everyone has praised the movie as fantastically moving and brilliant.  But this is all hype.  The critics are wrong.  Oppenheimer is very beautifully made but its emotionally incoherent and way, way too long and confusing -- most of it is not at all memorable.  The acting is superb and dialogue is wonderfully designed but the movie doesn't seem to be about anything of interest.  If the picture were ninety minutes long I might be able to cautiously recommend it.  But this thing goes on for over three-hours and its very very loud -- I know the A-Bomb went boom in a big way, but the picture is punishing both on the ears and the mind.  It's a depressing failure and, since my hopes were elevated walking into the theater, ruined my weekend.