Review: 'Oppenheimer,' anchored by Cillian Murphy's brilliant performance, captures the contradictions of the man behind the atomic bomb

With “Oppenheimer,” writer-director Christopher Nolan may have finally found a subject — a prickly genius who managed to compartmentalize his life so that unlocking the whole man and his world-shattering contribution to history requires some mental gymnastics — that fits perfectly with his puzzle-box style of filmmaking.

Nolan’s subject is J. Robert Oppenheimer, who after 1945 was called “the father of the atomic bomb.” Before 1945, Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) was a theoretical physicist who traveled across Europe in order to learn from the experts in the field — including Danish physicist Neils Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) and the German Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighöfer), before settling into positions at Cal-Berkeley and CalTech, to delve into a new field called quantum mechanics. 

Oppenheimer understands the theory, and it’s up to others to find the practical applications. One of those others is his next-door colleague, Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), who is building what will be known as a cyclotron — colloquially, an atom smasher.

After the Germans invade Poland in 1939, Oppenheimer and his colleagues discuss the horrific possibility that splitting the atom could lead to a weapon of war, an atomic bomb. In 1942, Col. (and later General) Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) is seeking out scientists to start developing such a bomb, saying that the Nazis are 12 months ahead in their research. Oppenheimer tells Groves it’s 18 months — because the Nazis have Heisenberg on their side — and agrees to lead the organization of a secret lab. Oppenheimer chooses a site he knows, where he and his brother, Frank (Dylan Arnold), have some ranch property, in New Mexico. He names the facility Los Alamos.

Nolan’s script tells Oppenheimer’s story largely in flashback, and structures the narrative around two hearings, one private, one public. The private hearing, in 1954, was to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance, over his past associations with Communists and socialists (including an effort to unionize research staff at Cal-Berkeley). The public hearing, in 1959, is of a U.S. Senate committee questioning Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, whose confirmation for a cabinet post is hung up over Strauss’ connections to Oppenheimer — whom Strauss offered the job as director of the Institute of Advance Study at Princeton, whose emeritus professors included Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), depicted here as a mentor and moral compass for Oppenheimer.

Among the many boxes in Oppenheimer’s compartmentalized life — along with scientist, theorist, activist, wartime hero and post-war advocate against developing the hydrogen bomb — an important one depicted here is lover. As a Cal-Berkeley professor, he has a torrid love affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), a psychology professor, but they break up in 1939. The same year, he meets Katherine “Kitty” Puening (Emily Blunt), who at the time is on her third marriage, to a physician — but she divorces him to marry Oppenheimer after becoming pregnant. 

Downey’s Strauss (pronounced “straws”) leads a deep bench of supporting roles in this sprawling, three-hour biography. Besides Blunt, Hartnett, Conti and Damon, totable cast members are Alden Ehrenreich as a Senate aide advising Strauss during his confirmation, Jason Clarke and Macon Blair as lawyers on opposite sides in Oppenheimer’s security hearing, David Dastmalchian as an FBI snitch, Dane DeHaan as Groves’ squirrelly aide, and Rami Malek as another scientist. Perhaps the most intriguing side player is Benny Safdie as Oppenheimer’s fellow physicist Edward Teller, with whom Oppenheimer argues about the next step in the development of atomic weapons: A hydrogen bomb, the power of which Oppenheimer believes may be more than any country should possess.

Murphy’s central performance is extraordinary, his angularity embodying the either-or binary of Oppenheimer’s thought processes. All of the troubles of his world — the Nazis winning the war, the Soviets getting the bomb, the Americans destroying themselves through fear and paranoia, the scandals threatening to wreck his career and marriage — play out on Murphy’s face, each one like a math problem he’s determined to solve.

Nolan deploys a range of visual devices — shooting in 70mm IMAX and 35mm film, with the Strauss hearings in crisp black and white and other events in vivid color — to keep the narrative threads straight. The look is luminous, with Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography, Ruth De Jong’s period-perfect production design and Ellen Mirojnick’s gorgeous costume design all contributing. As always with Nolan, the sound design is propulsive and overwhelming, particularly in the re-creation of the first atomic test blast.

Some have criticized “Oppenheimer” for giving short shrift to the countless victims that resulted from Oppenheimer’s work — notably, the Indigenous people of New Mexico affected by atomic fallout and the Japanese people on whom atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are touched on briefly, though it’s valid to argue that more could be said, even in a three-hour movie. The broader message Nolan conveys brilliantly is that the atomic bomb, no matter how it was justified during World War II and the Cold War, has given the world the horrible ability to destroy ourselves in a matter of minutes.

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‘Oppenheimer’

★★★★

Opened Friday, July 21, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some sexuality, nudity and language. Running time: 180 minutes.