I had forgotten how stirring it is to hear the sounds of actual, physical film beginning to run in a dark, crowded movie theater.
Like Christopher Nolan, I’m someone who is greatly interested in processes, specifically analog processes. The acclaimed director, undoubtedly one of the shrinking few left who can truly garner a blank check on a new project, shot his latest film Oppenheimer entirely on IMAX 65 mm cameras. There are also rumors that he paid out of pocket to fix the local IMAX theater’s projection system, making it one of just 30 theaters worldwide capable of showing the epic biographical thriller in 70 mm IMAX.
It feels like a lot of effort just to make sure the film is shown in Nolan’s preferred format, but for an analog acolyte, and a lover of movies, the final product was worth the struggle. When the first few gorgeous images and booming sounds were projected onto the massive screen at the Regal Opry Mills IMAX theater, it was immersive.
But Nolan has always had a knack for visually impressive filmmaking, even back when his budgets were considerably lower than Oppenheimer’s reported $100 million-plus price tag. His staunchest critics never denied the level of care that went into crafting his films. It was the other aspects of his movies that sometimes left viewers cold.
Critics of Nolan’s filmography often consider him a humorless robot who is more interested in creating impossibly labyrinthine story structures than rendering genuine human emotion — not to mention, incapable of portraying a nuanced female character. As a major Nolan-head, I admit these critiques aren’t entirely unfounded, even if they are overblown. (Say what you want about Interstellar, but it’s a deeply emotional film with a story that revolves around a pair of dynamic female characters.)
Oppenheimer, in some ways, feels like a rebuttal from Nolan himself. It is a complex film, the most mature work on the director’s CV to date, that deals with thorny human emotions and how those emotions affect the work that we do.
J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the most complicated — and important — figures in human history. Nolan and star Cillian Murphy make sure the audience feels everything the titular character feels across the three-hour runtime. It’s as intricate an inner life as I’ve seen portrayed in a mainstream biopic in quite some time.
But Oppenheimer the film is an old-school epic, which means there is a truly staggering amount of important characters to deal with. Like the summer’s other two Big Deal auteur efforts, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (come on, I couldn’t go the whole review without mentioning it), there is a little bit of everything in the cast — Matt Damon in full crowd-pleaser mode, Gary Oldman holding court for one scene as Harry Truman, Alden Ehrenreich and Dane DeHaan returned from the Failed Leading Man abyss, a nearly wordless Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett continuing his comeback tour, Benny Safdie sporting an indecipherable accent, an endless array of character actors, Josh Peck for some reason.
Oppenheimer
But above the scores of recognizable faces, three performances stand alongside Murphy as the film’s four pillars. Leaving the theater, one of the many thoughts racing through my head was that I’ve never been more frustrated with the MCU for stealing Robert Downey Jr. from us for 15 years. Oppenheimer is what happens when RDJ is given a real role. He very well might win an Oscar for his performance as Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss.
The other two fulcrums are Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty Oppenheimer and Florence Pugh as his on-and-off lover Jean Tatlock. On the surface what appears to be a pair of stereotypical roles, the dutiful wife and the tortured ex, shoulder the knotty, emotional weight of the film’s themes. Both could end up with end-of-the-year honors.
Beyond the cast is a murderers’ row of craftspeople, the usual Nolan suspects, turning in characteristically great work — editor Jennifer Lame, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, composer Ludwig Goransson — all in service of the film’s fascination with process. The first two hours zip by at the pace of a David Fincher or Michael Mann procedural, leading up to the film’s visual apex, which I’m sure you’ve read about by now. It lives up to the hype.
Following a brief detour into existential, psychological, guilt-ridden horror, we’re right back in the procedural dash as the last 45 minutes morph into a legal thriller. Some may bemoan the presence of Nolan’s trademark structural flourishes, but if you’re unaware of some of the story’s twists and turns, the narrative trickery pays off emotionally.
Oppenheimer is going to inspire some rapturous responses. As a 31-year-old movie obsessive, I admit some of Nolan’s earlier work will never be surpassed on my own list for purely personal reasons. But this feels like the culmination of everything his career has been building toward. See it on as big a screen as possible.
