Oppenheimer

Beautiful 70mm IMAX, and I found that I enjoyed it more the second time around. I finally see what the hype around Robert Downey Jr. is (but I’d still rank him behind Gosling, De Niro, and Ruffalo ). He’s subtle, cunning, and calculated, yet rash and emotional, and it’s all in his face and the look in his eyes. I enjoyed the black and white congressional scenes much more compelling this time as well. I found myself actively anticipating that last hour, rather than feeling it was out of place like the first time I watched it. Oppenheimer is kind of the anti-Tenet, isn’t it? Tenet takes broad, complex ideas and is incapable of communicating them in any sort of digestible way for the viewer. Oppenheimer, meanwhile, communicates very complicated language and ideas in a way that’s not only understandable (enough) for a general audience, but is also engaging and invites the viewer to at least attempt to follow trains of thought and come to conclusions before certain characters do. It’s actively inviting viewers to think alongside it rather than punishing them for trying. Tenet also removes any trace of humanity or emotion from the equation, whereas Oppenheimer actively pits the humanity against the science. It’s repeatedly stated that “theory can only take you so far.” That’s true for the science, but I think Oppenheimer also demonstrates that as a human, emotion will only take you so far, and also that logic will only take you so far. Like Lewis Strauss, we are flawed, analytical, imperfect, manipulative, rash beings that will never be able to balance those two aspects of ourselves, and we were given the power to detonate the world.