Last week I went to see Oppenheimer so I could write about it and Barbie and the strange cultural moment we are in. Barbenheimer really is the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak summer, in terms of box office gross and film quality (A24 productions notwithstanding as You Hurt My Feelings, Past Lives, and Talk to Me are all among the year’s best).
So I watched Oppenheimer and I sat down to write about it. The piece was called “Barbenheimer: Fragile Masculinity and What it Means to Destroy the World” and was going to discuss how the two films explore these themes. I wrote 1600 words toward this idea, which is already a pretty average length article for me, and two things had happened. The first is that I still hadn’t addressed Barbie and Ken’s fragile masculinity (or what it meant to destroy the world), and the second was that I didn’t like how things were coming together.
This is not that uncommon as a writer. There are days when it feels like the words just aren’t coming out right, but this was a little different. It was slightly similar to when I wrote about No Hard Feelings as I seemed to be discovering, in real-time, what it was that had really irked me about the film. Processing movies and reaching conclusions is a big reason I write about movies, so I welcome such feelings, but it meant a change of course was needed.
Because the thing is, I don’t want to talk about Oppenheimer. I didn’t love it but I thought it was fine (in terms of technical movie-making prowess), and parts of it were actually good from a technical filmmaking perspective. But with the exception of the first 20 minutes and about 45 minutes in the middle, I didn’t enjoy it at all.
And I think the reason is because the film is a lie.
Oppenheimer was the father of the atomic bomb, and the book that the film is based on is called American Prometheus. Prometheus, of course, stole fire from the Gods and gave it to the humans allowing them to advance civilization in general. Wikipedia summarizes it well calling Prometheus a figure who “represents human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences.” We should also take note of Frankenstein’s subtitle, the “Modern Prometheus.”
So the Prometheus tale is one of scientific striving, unintended consequences, and ensuing punishment. This would seem to be a perfect fit for the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The scientific striving is obvious. Of course, the bomb had both intended and unintended consequences—epitomized in the trailer line about giving them the power to destroy themselves. And he is then punished for making the bomb.
Except not really. In the film, the punishment is clearly tied to a mixture of his communism links and a character assassination via Strauss (Robert Downey Jr). It is very obvious that director Christopher Nolan wants us to side with Oppenheimer and believe, as Nolan clearly does, that Oppenheimer has gotten an unfair lot in history.
I realized several days after the fact, and over a thousand words into the first attempt at writing this article, that though I really do think the movie is a complete failure in terms of the character of Jean (Florence Pugh), what really bothered me most about it is that this movie is not very much about an atomic bomb.
This movie shows one explosion, a technically impressive one about two hours in. This is the famous test that, it should be noted, wreaked havoc on the indigenous populations nearby. But crucially, we don’t see the bomb drop on Hiroshima. We get two main moments related to the actual use of the bomb. First there is a scene where it is determined that the bomb won’t be needed for use against Nazi Germany, which was why it was being developed. This is a pretty incredible moment of tension that is mostly blown through, though Oppenheimer does have reservations about using the bomb on Japan. Next we see a discussion, bracing in its pragmatic callousness, of deciding where they will drop the bomb. The test they do is to see if their pilots will be safe.
But there’s nothing about the bomb that actually dropped, the one that destroyed a thriving country and sent reverberations throughout the rest of Japanese film and culture. The only word about the destruction is about the number of dead and injured, a detail that serves to highlight Oppenheimer as a sympathetic character for caring about the number and vilify the others for acting like he wouldn’t care.
Watching it the lack of focus on the bomb bothered me, but the shockwave took a while to reach me. And then it really bothered me. Because the film immediately brushes past the bomb and its aftermath to talk about Oppenheimer and make the case that he was maligned by history and that his scientific accomplishment deserved to be elevated over his role in the genocide. We get very little of other scientist characters thinking about their role in the destruction of the world either.
There’s a really great line from a character that asks Oppenheimer if this is the end of World War II or the start of the next war. It’s the kind of idea that, in my opinion, should have been the focal point of the entire movie. And maybe it was. But the film after the bomb drop shifts focus not to the cold war or AI or other technology that might destroy us all, but to the culture war centered on men and their reputations. The film ends by making it clear that, given long enough time, Oppenheimer would get his just rewards in the form of a medal of honor and Strauss would get his in the form of career embarrassment and failure.
And anyone else affected by the bomb—like generations of Japanese people and the entire world that lives in fear of atomic warfare—doesn’t factor into the aftermath. It’s the kind of failure of substance I expected from Nolan trying to take on this material, but there are times in this beast when the technical mastery made me forget. At least for a couple of days.
I think that’s what I have to say. I didn’t really want to watch the movie, and I didn’t really want to write about it, but I relented and now have said what I have to say.
