Oppenheimer – a ‘formidable’ movie – in 70mm at Atlanta’s Tara Theatre

Chris Escobar got me back to the movies.

He rescued the Tara. He revived the Plaza. He reinvented the Atlanta Film Festival.

Reviewing movies is a wonderful job. It is, nonetheless, a job. And even post-pandemic, the thought of being in a large, enclosed space with people who’ve been exposed to Lord-knows-what wasn’t…well…wasn’t my idea of a good time.

Then along came Escobar. And then, as well, along came this past weekend, which some Hollywood bottom-feeder decided to christen “Barbenheimer ”  – as in the twin openings of the films, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”

“Barbie” beckoned, but the responsible choice was “Oppenheimer,” three-plus hours of sorta’ recent history about how J. Robert Oppenheimer learned to stop worrying and fear the bomb.

As in, his bomb. The atomic bomb, which he invented. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” he supposedly uttered, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. In the original Sanskrit.

In Christopher Nolan’s admirable if imperfect biographical epic, Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) reads those words – in the original Sanskrit – from a book perched on his mistress Jean Tatlock’s (Florence Pugh) original (presumably) bare breasts. (Context: she’s straddling him as they make love.)

Nolan may be a cinematic genius, but he’s a showman as well. Nekked women tend to focus an audience’s attention, especially in 70mm.

My point, I guess, is that while “Oppenheimer” is over-long and over-crowded with white guys in unflattering suits saying mostly unflattering things about our titular protagonist, the movie is also formidable. It tackles a serious topic – the life and times of the man who invented the instrument by which humans could destroy ourselves – and doesn’t pull punches. Here’s J. Robert Oppenheimer’s story, Nolan insists.  Here’s all of it.  Hence the hefty running time.

The film takes us from the American physicist’s early days as a gifted grad student in England and Germany in the 1920s, through his prolonged and impassioned work on the bomb, his anointment as a national hero and his eventual martyrdom in the 1950s at the hands of the Atomic Energy Commission. 

And they are…? A bunch of self-serving politicians (are there any other kind in movies?) led by the devious Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). This is shown as Washington power-mongering at its most repulsive – a closed-door, hush-hush hearing which pits the imperfect but essentially innocent Oppenheimer against a squadron of men for whom political backstabbing is the very air they breathe. 

These scenes provide a framework (and pretty much the last hour) for Nolan’s version of the Big Bang Theory, i.e., who Oppenheimer was, what he did and why it was done.  As someone says, the scientists provide the cards; the bureaucrats decide how the hand is played.

The picture is often eerily beautiful, perhaps never more so than when showing us the bomb being tested in the middle of nowhere (i.e., Los Alamos, New Mexico). The movie goes silent – deadly silent – as a Biblical pillar of fire rises in the desert. “Bring in the sheets,” Oppenheimer tells his frustrated, alcoholic wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) earlier that day, giving a semi-demented domestic touch to the day the world changed. 

“Oppenheimer’s” talkiness can tire you out. As can the sheer number of topics it tackles, everything from anti-Semitism to power-politics gamesmanship to why we dropped the bomb after the Nazis were already defeated.  Nolan’s cinematic mastery helps a lot, as does his impressive cast which brims with memorable performances alongside blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em cameos (Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, among others).

Blunt is remarkable as Kitty whose underwritten character is mostly viewed through a flask in her purse and an empty cocktail glass. So is Matt Damon as Oppenheimer’s military keeper (foursquare among the slithery bureaucrats). And Downey, having almost singlehandedly destroyed the movies (I am become Iron Man…) is obviously out for a best supporting actor Oscar. One that, in this case, would be well-deserved. 

Holding it all together is Murphy, a slim Irish actor with ice-blue eyes. He understands his character’s contradictions; more importantly, he has an uncanny instinct for how to reveal them. For Oppenheimer, the A-Bomb isn’t just a weapon of mass destruction. It’s also his masterpiece.  His Beethoven’s 9^th. His Sistine Chapel. When he finally dons his trademark fedora and pipe, it’ s like watching a superhero (or villain?) don his spandex costume. With great power comes great responsibility.

More than even a starry-eyed scientist could dream of.