Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, becomes a riveting three-hour psychodrama that’s breathtaking in its historical authenticity.
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, becomes a riveting three-hour psychodrama that’s breathtaking in its historical authenticity. Yet it remains every inch a Nolan film. You feel that in the heady, dense, dizzying way he slices and dices chronology, turning Oppenheimer’s life into an act of cinematic fission. Cillian Murphy, in a phenomenal performance, plays “Oppie” as an elegant mandarin who’s also a bit snakelike — at once a cold prodigy and an ardent humanist, an aristocrat and a womanizer, and a man who oversees the invention of nuclear weapons without a shred of doubt or compunction, only to confront the world he created from behind a defensive shield of guilt that’s a lot less self-aware. “Oppenheimer” has a mesmerizing first half, and the buildup to the creation of the first atomic bomb just about ticks with cosmic suspense. But the big bang itself, as the bomb is tested in the wee hours of that fateful day code-named Trinity, is something of a letdown (the terrifying awesome bigness of it all does not come across). And once the movie shoots past that nuclear climax, a certain humming intensity leaks out of it. Nevertheless, the film’s colliding narrative gives off enough heat and light to sear itself into your imagination.