By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***** WHEN?: Monday 24 July 2023

Welcome to the best film of 2023 so far and certainly the 1 most worthy of receiving Oscar consideration early in 2024.

• Read on for reasons including how Nolan gives us 3 intertwining narrative strands which ultimately pay off

Don’t be put off by the 180-minute running time of this new film by British-born director and screenplay author Christopher Nolan because it’s far less densely-plotted and confusing than his last, Tenet.

Science doesn’t sound particularly cinematic but here we have the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who was pivotal in developing the first nuclear weapons for America during World War Two thanks to the Manhattan Project.

It wouldn’t be a Nolan film without some interweaving narratives and we have 3 at play here. First there is the traditional through line as we join young Oppenheimer finding his feet in a laboratory including almost poisoning a fellow scientist played by Kenneth Branagh with a cyanide-filled apple.

Second in black and white we have the bid by Downey Jr’s Lewis Strauss, chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission who resents Oppenheimer’s intellect, to become Secretary of Commerce.

Third we join Oppenheimer post the dropping of his bombs on Japan at a hearing intended to revoke his security clearance and ultimately end his political influence.

The latter 2 strands appear at 1st to have little to link them but it is a credit to Nolan’s writing that at the most dramatic moment in both narratives we have a reveal which makes both suddenly more satisfying.

We saw Murphy onstage at The Barbican in Grief Is The Thing With Feathers in 2019 and said then: ‘Like all the best actors, Murphy immerses himself in the role to such an extent that he is unrecognisable. The anarchic nature of the material means sometimes the emotional power of the material is blunted but the 85 minutes in his company is certainly never dull.’

Murphy is certainly a chameleon-like actor and here he gives gravitas to a complex character who holds true to the scientific idea that 2 opposing truths could still be possible and convinces as a brilliant scientist who might be betraying his country in the same way that he is cheating on his wife.

Emily Blunt as wife Kitty comes into her own towards the end of the film as she witholds a handshake showing she is capable of holding a grudge in the saw way as Downey Jr’s Strauss is and yet only she has the clarity of vision to spot who is the architect of Oppenheimer’s downfall.

There’s a fine ensemble cast to recognise and Matt Damon as the seemingly straightforward military foil to Oppenheimer is very strong and we loved Gary Oldman’s, so good in Apple’s Slow Horses, brief turn as US President Harry S. Truman particularly his: ‘Don’t let that cry baby back in here again’ after a fraught meeting with Oppenheimer post bomb use.

Oppenheimer’s complicated love life is also drawn out by Florence Pugh as Communist Jean Tatlock not least in a particularly excruciating interrogation scene for Blunt’s Mrs Oppenheimer.

Scientists and politicians can occasionally make for difficult bedfellows and Tom Conti’s fine turn as Albert Einstein foreshadows Oppenheimer’s own problematic future.

Nolan has been nominated for 5 Oscars but is yet to win and, although early, Oppenheimer is real edge-of-your-seat stuff and definitely the early frontrunner in the Best Picture race.

We found its soundtrack occasionally deafening, its subject matter complicated but always engrossing yet fizzing with ideas but at its heart a more involving film than we can ever remember Nolan helming.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Oppenheimer Tickets
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