Oppenheimer Movie Review & Film Summary 2023

Atomic Ambition: Oppenheimer’s Story

Director Christopher Nolan and his cast make the most of a fascinating true story. The film juggles many periods, with Oppenheimer’s college days shot in color and the Manhattan Project scenes (including fine performances from David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi and Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence) rendered in black and white.

Cillian Murphy

Following his awe-inspiring work in Dunkirk and Inception, writer-director Christopher Nolan again demonstrates a masterful grasp of narrative structure with Oppenheimer. Breaking down its complex story into two oscillating plot lines (along with a few segments of high-contrast black and white), Nolan has created a riveting and unnerving film about one of the 20th century’s most contested legacies.

Cillian Murphy delivers a remarkable performance as J Robert Oppenheimer, whose eerily close million-yard stare suggests he sees the invisible power crackling between subatomic particles and their gravest, most unforgivable consequences for mankind.

Robert Downey Jr.

Nolan wisely chooses not to show us the horror of the first atomic bomb dropping on Japan, choosing instead to leave that to Oppenheimer’s haunted vision. He also judiciously exposes the humiliation and fear of his flinty wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and their friends, including a Commie ex, played with frayed wires by Florence Pugh.

Cillian Murphy delivers a tour-de-force performance as the driven and tormented Oppenheimer, while Matt Damon is superb as the army general Leslie Groves who helmed the Manhattan Project.

Florence Pugh

Cillian Murphy stokes the fires as Oppenheimer, a man of many parts comes to realize what he has created. The film also boasts a strong supporting cast including Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss and Emily Blunt as Kitty, the nutty wife.

Nolan juggles timelines, characters, and locations at a brisk pace. The result is a brainy, brawny epic that shows how one scientist’s compulsion for power changed the world. Little actual violence is shown.

Emily Blunt

The cast here is superb, led by an always-excellent Emily Blunt as a feisty and supportive wife to a brilliant man driven to madness by his work; Matt Damon as results-driven Army General Leslie Groves; Florence Pugh as a Commie ex with whom Oppenheimer had a tumultuous relationship; Kenneth Branagh as the legendary physicist Niels Bohr.

Nolan deliberately chooses not to show the actual bombing of Japan (and presumably the ensuing chain reaction), but it’s in the mind of the lead character, a decision that gives this film an extra dimension.

Benny Safdie

Unlike Interstellar, Tenet, or Inception, which use their science-fiction leanings to explore universal themes and human principles, Oppenheimer is all about the world’s most powerful weapon and its destructive potential. And it does so with a riveting cast.

From the start, it’s a fascinating film. But the best performance here belongs to Benny Safdie as haughty US Atomic Energy Commission Commissioner Lewis Strauss. He’s a cagey foil to Downey Jr.’s outwardly stoic and privately damaged Oppenheimer.

Kenneth Branagh

A lot of Oppenheimer is composed of conversation: academic back-and-forth among physicists as they scribble equations on chalkboards; tense, loaded exchanges between American politicians and military leaders as they debate the fate of World War II; and terse meetings of Congressional investigations into Los Alamos scientists’ loyalty to the country.

It’s in these scenes, and others like them, that the film works best. Nolan’s shark-like pacing slows down long enough to let us feel the moral calculations that a man must make when harnessing god-like power.

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Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett, who has been absent from the big screen for a while, gives a superb performance as Robert’s colleague Ernest Lawrence. He’s joined by a top-notch ensemble cast including Benny Safdie as Isidor Isaac Rabi, David Krumholtz as Robert’s colleague and eventual lover Jean Tatlock, Kenneth Branagh as a jolly Niels Bohr, Rami Malek as Los Alamos physicist David Hill, and Jason Clarke as an aggressive lawyer.

Oppenheimer is a riveting portrait of the unnerving intersection of science and politics. Cillian Murphy should get plenty of award-season attention for his nuanced performance as the driven, egotistical, brilliant man whose compulsion changed the world.

Rami Malek

While the movie is a little too busy for its good, a great cast makes it worth your time. In addition to a never-better Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt (Kitty), Matt Damon (a stern superior), and Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock) deliver powerful performances.

Director Christopher Nolan brings his typical style to this sprawling epic, which uses three concurrent timelines to tell the story of the man behind the atomic bomb. Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema captures every nuance of Murphy’s face with IMAX-sized close-ups.

Conclusion

Cillian Murphy delivers a tour-de-force performance as the driven and tormented Oppenheimer, while Matt Damon is superb as the army general Leslie Groves who helmed the Manhattan Project. The cast here is superb, led by an always-excellent Emily Blunt as a feisty and supportive wife to a brilliant man driven to madness by his work; Matt Damon as results-driven Army General Leslie Groves; Florence Pugh as a Commie ex with whom Oppenheimer had a tumultuous relationship; Kenneth Branagh as the legendary physicist Niels Bohr. In addition to a never-better Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt (Kitty), Matt Damon (a stern superior), and Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock) deliver powerful performances.

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