Oppenheimer (2023)
When drama feels like action.
Presentation:
Proof that this generation can sit through a 3 hour science biography? Shot on IMAX Kodak 2383 and black and white film, the cinematography has gorgeous depth of field, which leads to some out of focus shots I didn’t mind too much. There are a few drop dead beautiful shots that you really wouldn’t expect from a biography, that may convert other cinematographers to shoot more wide open. Sound is really a main character in this story. It’s a Nolan film so there’s going to be a lot of practical effects and wonderful music. It will be a disservice to miss this in theatres and your experience will suffer greatly on dvd viewing. Ludwig Goransson does something truly magical with this score, perhaps distractingly so. Like all Nolan films, he has a habit of editing with neck-breaking speeds, which makes the drama never lose momentum.
Conclusion:
This is one of the fastest paced biography dramas. Court scenes feel like action sequences and the timeline follows Nolan’s typical nonlinear storytelling. With an all star cast, you can feel the gravitas of each character despite only a few seconds on screen. The film is over 3 hours and though some political drama parts were a bit muddy, the core story captivates. The movie does fail in some regards. Although everything in the film is designed to be with Oppenheimer’s perspective in mind, the fast pace doesn’t allow the viewer to build a proper connection and understand his depth aside from metaphorical representations of atomic shots. The best scene is easily the post bombing hallucination address, which finally begins to portray to heart of the film: his internal struggle. However, for the most part this aspect seems to have taken a back seat as a result of the massive cast and such intimacy is lost. This is also the consequence of the ambiguous representation of his motives as Nolan didn’t want to clearly paint him one way or another.
A surprisingly good biography that feels riveting. It requires a lot of effort on the audience to follow the politics and characters, but the performances are outstanding. It may not be Nolan’s greatest film, but it has the most gravitas.
Recommendations
It’s hard surviving on land, air, and sea.