Daring, dazzling Oppenheimer is cinema at its best and easily the greatest film of 2023 so far

Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer shows the great heights that cinema can hit and all but assures an Oscar for leading man Cillian Murphy.

Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

Oppenheimer (M)

Director: Christopher Nolan (Inception)

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt

Rating: *****

The ultimate blast from the past

If you still believe in cinema as a brave, ambitious, challenging, enlightening and forward-pointing form, then there is only one movie you should be seeing any time soon.

And it ain’t Barbie. It is Oppenheimer.

This is a major motion picture of the highest calibre, a daring, dazzling work that breaks ranks with everything we have come to associate with going to the movies in 2023.

Have you been longing to see something that will truly get you thinking, get you reacting and, most importantly of all, get you watching? You won’t be taking your eyes off Oppenheimer for a millisecond.

This is a movie of big ideas, writ large on the big screen. This is cinema as it should be – and still could be – if those with a vision are set free to pursue it.

At its core, this mesmerising production is a compelling character study of one of the most important figures in the past century of this planet’s history.

Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) was the theoretical physicist chosen by the US Government to oversee the conception, design, construction and testing of the world’s first nuclear weapons.

The chain reaction of crucial decisions, dilemmas and denials fired through Oppenheimer’s racing mind during World War II ultimately brought that horrible conflict to a sudden and definitive end.

However, in providing the US military with the means to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Oppenheimer unleashed a terrifying new level of man-made death and destruction that has both defined and undermined the notion of world peace ever since.

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer – and surely an Oscar beckons.

In adapting the screenplay from the 2005 book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, writer-director Christopher Nolan wisely refrains from letting his movie lose its way inside the vast intellect of its subject.

Instead, Nolan zeros in on the many flaws, inconsistencies and paradoxes that were studded through Oppenheimer’s complicated personal life: a series of actions and inactions that not only influenced the creation of the atomic bomb, but also doomed Oppenheimer to a damning downfall as a political scapegoat at the height of the Cold War.

Do not believe for a moment that Oppenheimer will be an easygoing viewing experience. Just as its sheer scale poses a challenge – a mammoth running time stops the clock just shy of the three-hour mark – so too does its fragmented narrative structure.

The story unfolds three distinct time frames, two of which require a lot of talky, spoken-word scaffolding to lift Nolan’s heavy source material.

In one of these sections, Oppenheimer (brilliantly portrayed by Murphy throughout) is fighting for both his livelihood and reputation at a closed hearing designed by his enemies to destroy him once and for all.

In the other, the chief architect of Oppenheimer’s downfall, atomic energy czar Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), is facing a Senate inquiry that could elevate him to the highest echelon of power inside the US government.

To perfectly frank the relevance of these scenes, the movie continually crosses back to its most important setting: the nuclear testing facility of Los Alamos, deep in the desert region of Nevada.

Matt Damon as Leslie Groves and Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

It was here, at the height of uncertainty during WWII, that Oppenheimer and the finest minds of his generation thought their way through to a day of reckoning that will change the course of history for all mankind.

A day on which all hell would literally break loose: July 16, 1945. It was here, at Los Alamos, that Oppenheimer and his team conducted what came to be known as the Trinity Test, the first recorded detonation of a nuclear weapon.

Less than a month later, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be razed to the ground, and in excess of 200,000 lives came to an end.

The extended sequence which depicts the Trinity Test is what secures Oppenheimer’s instant claim to cinematic greatness.

The full, unbridled impact of what we are witnessing – the might, the fury, the beauty, the horror – will be lost on no-one.

Just as importantly, the ongoing relevance of what has happened since the invention of nuclear weapons – and how those events fit within that flimsy puzzle we call world peace – are potently and definitively communicated to the viewer here.

Make no mistake – Oppenheimer is the best movie of the year so far by a considerable space.

The exemplary standards reached here owe much to the already well-known, yet-still evolving filmmaking talents of Nolan.

His commanding, yet carefully coded and layered brand of storytelling has never been better applied than to a complex, enigmatic and misunderstood figure such as J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer’s ill-fated lover Jean Tatlock in Oppenheimer.

As for the impressive creative contributions assembled behind the scenes – particularly the eerily evocative cinematography of Hoyte van Hoytema, and the insistent music score of composer Ludwig Goransson – each both serves and expands Nolan’s vision at exactly the right times.

And finally, there are the performances.

The work of Cillian Murphy in the lead role of Oppenheimer is astounding. The Irish-born actor reaches for singular notes of calm, of mania, of control and of abandon in his character, and hits all of them with totally humane precision. This is as great as screen acting can get. Start engraving the bloke an Oscar right now, please.

The huge support ensemble surrounding Murphy is just as impressive, and most get to leave an indelible mark on the picture in small, yet telling ways.

While mention must be made of the efforts of Matt Damon (as Manhattan Project overseer Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves), Emily Blunt (as Oppenheimer’s conflicted, but loyal wife), Florence Pugh (as the ill-fated love of Oppenheimer’s life) and the aforementioned Downey Jr. (in career best form), they are not the only performers to add value to an already-rich work of true cinema.

Oppenheimer is in cinemas now

Originally published as Daring, dazzling Oppenheimer is cinema at its best and easily the greatest film of 2023 so far