Going into this movie, I really knew nothing about Robert Oppenheimer. Someone told me he was the guy who made the atomic bomb, and I went "Oh, yeah.." With that being said, my standards were pretty low going into this movie. In this blog post, I will discuss my thoughts on the Oppenheimer movie.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
To be honest, parts of the movie had me confused. I ate at a really fancy restaurant for the first time last week, and when the waiter was listing off all the specials, I just looked at him without a single thought behind my eyes, just smiling and nodding. At times during the film, Cillian Murphy was going on about how physics works, and that is how I felt.
This movie had such a star-studded cast, but it was so weird to me because all these big-name actors barely got any screen time. It felt like a lot of the big names had a few lines, came and went, and you never saw much of them again. The range of actors they had in this film was also comical to me. It was almost funny to see the actors who played Josh from Drake and Josh and Roderick from Diary of a Wimpy Kid in a movie about the creation of the atomic bomb. Like, what are you doing here?
Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, and Matt Damon did an exceptional job in this movie. I haven't watched much with Cillian Murphy in it, but his performance as the main character was fantastic. Florence Pugh is always a favorite of mine. I understand her character wasn't the main character, but I would have loved seeing more screen time from her. Also, someone needs to let Florence Pugh play a character that doesn't get cheated on. Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Lewis Strauss was amazing. Emily Blunt's character had so much emotion. Matt Damon's character was great and as sexy as ever in this film.
Another thing I wanted to discuss about this movie was the morality of its main character. Considering this movie is a character study based on a real person, it is hard to critique the character. However, the movie really made me think about all that went behind the creation of the atomic bomb, a weapon so severe that it was able to end WWII. Oppenheimer's moral qualms about the use of the weapon reminded me of Jeremy Bentham's philosophy on "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." His stance on his philosophy was basically that "If everyone can be made happy, so much the better, but if a choice is necessary, it is always preferable to favor the many over the few." If my research serves me correctly, at the time that the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States had millions of troops still stationed overseas, meaning that the total number of lives lost over time due to the dropping of these bombs was significantly less than the number of those soldiers we had oversees. However, does Bentham's philosophy justify the death and suffering of countless innocent lives?
Another thing I wanted to point out regarding Oppenheimer's morality was that it appeared that his character in the movie seemed more distraught to hear that he seemingly had something to do with his lover Jean Tatlock's suicide than all the deaths that came about because of the bombings.
Oppenheimer's character seemed to be selfish and self-involved, only doing things to please himself. Despite this, I really don't believe he participated in the creation of the atomic bomb for fame. I truly think that as a Jewish American, he thought that the work he was doing would be more helpful than hurtful. Only until it got to a certain point did it seem like Oppenheimer grew to be more reluctant about the use of this weapon.
Without revealing much of my rankings for the year, I am putting this movie in my Top 5 out of 16 movies I've seen this year, right below The Machine. As I stated on my Letterbox account, "It feels severely wrong to rate Oppenheimer below a movie based on a stand-up comedy, but I've never been known for having good opinions." Even if you don't know much about history, physics, or the man that my roommate has mistakenly referred to as "Oppenboobie," check this film out.
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