Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan has never really clicked with me. I’d heard about the genius of his filmmaking, but never really felt it. I could comfortably rate his movies a 4 but there was always something that just didn’t click. They never hit like everyone said they did, like they felt like they were supposed to. Until this. Oppenheimer is a 3 hour non chronological film with multiple perspectives and an ungodly amount of characters with such unmemorable name that delves into surrealist and more experimental ideas in a way so much more interesting than anything Nolan’s put out before. It has the enormous task of telling the story of such a harrowing event, something that truly changed the world in ways we won’t ever truly be able to understand. It shouldn’t work as well as it does. I’m not saying the movie is without flaw, the bomb scene felt surprisingly underwhelming and the gravitas of its impacts didn’t echo across the final section of the film like it should’ve. But to me that didn’t detract all that much as the film excels in every aspect it truly attempts to go into. The psychological deep dive into Oppenheimer and the events surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb were done so beautifully. I adore the way the different timelines built each other up until they masterfully weaved into one another, connecting the entire thing together. The way the film manipulates chronology and time to call back to the past and allude to future events was truly genius. Oppenheimer is a movie I never expected to love this much. I thought I’d be able to acknowledge its merits but ultimately feel a bit disconnected as it didn’t seem like a movie for me but I was wrong and I’m very glad I was.