Every year, Hollywood requires at least a handful of films to fill a vacuum left from the previous year; ones that make as much money as possible, showcase film stars anxious to keep up their stock, gather limo-fulls of awards and keep the hype and publicity machine that is tinsel-town, well-oiled.
Occasionally, there’ll be an up-and-coming leading man or woman, piquing interest as the next big thing, just the merest hint that the film is taking risks, is about the art, not just the commercial imperative. Media outlets will show intense interest in the leading actors’ great sacrifices in taking on the part – obsessive method acting (‘they dressed as a prawn for 24 hours a day and didn’t speak to their family for 6 months’, ‘they learned to play the Enigma variations on the cello in 10 days from scratch’) and there’s always Hollywood’s insatiable need for a behind-the-scenes drama about the actor’s physical transformation – huge weight-gain or loss by the lead actors – which has become all too predictable. Rinse, repeat.
It’s a mistake, of course, to see these films as the best-made ones in the world, and to also assume that they represent the best of creative talent. That’s always been a fallacy but as consumers we are told from multiple avenues that these are the ‘ones to watch’ and by watching them we’ll be current and have something to talk about to our colleagues in the staff room or in the pub on a Friday night.
Every year, the machine lures us in and the Emperor parades their new clothes; unless a film is truly exceptional, of course, somehow deemed creatively groundbreaking, we are convinced these are worthy of our time and money. This year, the Barbie vs Oppenheimer media machine succeeded in taking both films into the financial stratosphere, both heading or breaking a billion dollars, representative not of how brilliant these films necessarily are but how manipulated we as potential audiences can be.
Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan (Interstellar, Dark Knight trilogy, Inception), starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jnr, Matt Damon and Rami Malik, is a case in point. A film (rated 8.6/ 10 on IMDB and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes – some of the highest ratings I’ve seen) that follows the tight formula of the biopic, employs enough cool, bankable stars and takes on one the most difficult of subject that will gather media interest, the development of the atom bomb by the American scientist and his colleagues.
At a taxing three hours, we have a deliberately disjointed, time-hopping film, switching between black and white and colour to convey different time periods.
From the beginning, we’re taken straight to the lead protagonist’s young adulthood with very little back-story about his beginnings. One of the most compelling aspects of the film early on is the juxtaposition of close-ups of Murphy’s face with images depicting quantum mechanics. These are dramatic and poetic, representing the inner life of the protagonist, his visionary imagination. What is particularly commendable about the film is its tight dialogue and believable acting, undermined, however, by a too-dominant score, which makes it hard to hear the actors at points.
We go on to observe the American scientist’s rise to power as the lead researcher in the race to produce the first atom bomb, first tested in the Los Alamos desert and then dropped on to the Japanese cities, Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, causing massive devastation and years of radioactive fallout.
Irish actor Cillian Murphy gives an accomplished, neat presentation of Oppenheimer, with widespread media interest in how he achieved weight loss to look like the real man, a telegraphed discussion in the media frenzy that accompanies blockbuster movies. Murphy conveys the ice-cold temperament of the scientist, skillfully mixing with his later guilt at the devastation caused by his team’s creation, betraying subtle, authentic emotion. I wondered if Murphy’s emotional range was genuinely impressive or the intrusive music was doing too much of the work. A bit of both, I think.
Damon’s portrayal of General Leslie Groves, who was deployed to assist Oppenheimer’s team in the creation of a town for research scientists, was memorable. Damon initially conveys something of the John Wayne sheriff in his performance (I was ready to cringe), pulling this back to be one that was not too cliched, had his own individually, characterized one on side as ‘Mr America’, one that is intent on saving American lives and ending the war, and also as his own-man when he defends the scientist in the 1950s; Damon’s character is an interesting counterpoint to Oppenheimer, who is frequently conflicted in his role. Particularly impressive, too, was the gritty, snarling realism of Robert Downey Junior as Lewis Strauss, an adversary to Oppenheimer, and Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, a belligerent prosecutor brought in to tear down Oppenheimer’s reputation after the war.
I felt pretty incensed by the portrayal of women in this film. In a film as sobering as this, Oppenheimer first flame, Jean Tatlock (played by Florence Pugh) appeared to us topless, straddling Oppenheimer, a scene completely unnecessary in a film as topic-driven and forbidding as this; for me, it felt exploitative and tick-boxy (must have sex scene with beautiful, bankable Hollywood star– tick); arguably, Emily Blunt, as Oppenheimer’s wife, only got one good scene as she is interrogated about her husband’s potentially Marxist credentials – woefully under-employed, it seemed. Yes, like many gritty American movies packed full of male actors, about men, women don’t come off well. While Oppenheimer’s story is one inevitably focus on male-dominated spheres of research and work, Nolan could have done something a little different but this did not materialise. Other cameos feel wasteful too. Tom Conti’s Einstein felt a little walk on, walk off and Rami Malik, who proves to be a pivotal character to the scientist’s reputation, is way too a brief character towards the end.
This feels like a good and important film, but not a great one. Too long to watch a second time and, for me, several irritating aspects. It will bring about much-needed, wider discussions again about the role of nuclear weapons in creating (an albeit fragile) world peace through a deadlock between super-powers and raise awareness in those unaware about the devastation inflicted on those Japan cities.
That brings me on to something troubling about the film. I was left wondering whether the film should present Japanese perspectives, which is completely absent in this biopic. Out of cultural sensitivity, respect, perhaps cultural shame, we have no alternative angle and this, for me, could represent a glaring over-sight. I wonder how the film-makers will feel about this in the years to come. Some difficulties, perhaps, but this may be mitigated by awards, large cheques and lucrative new work.
7.5 / 10
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