SSP Thinks Film

Of all Nolan’s films, OPPENHEIMER is the sexy one?! A 3 hour, talky, philosophical character drama isn’t most people’s idea of a must-see crowd-pleaser, but it’s making waves. The time taken and the deliberate pacing, paired with stylistic signifiers of differing points of view and warped takes on reality makes this one hell of an intensive and fascinating character study. In a typically Nolan, non-chronological fashion, we follow J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) the “Father of the Atom Bomb”, his race against time during WWII to deliver the weapon and his fall from grace in the decade that followed. Murphy’s transcendent central performance threatens to overwhelm the rest of this talented ensemble (Robert Downey Jr and Matt Damon still stand out) but everyone gets at least one showstopping moment. What will stay with you the most beyond individual wondrous and terrifying images is the unrelenting wall of sound, the encroaching sound of guilt and our doom. SSP