Nolan casts Oppenheimer spell

Nonika Singh

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Christopher Nolan, the name itself sends the mind in a tizzy. How will the British-American filmmaker, who has given us mind-boggling and mind-altering films like ‘Inception’ and ‘Tenet’, challenge us this time? We know only too well how, with each new film, he not only raises the bar for himself, but sets new frontiers of cinematic treat for cinephiles to not just savour visually but grasp conceptually. Only this time, instead of transporting us into a futuristic sci-fi world, Nolan’s obsession with quantum physics takes us back in time and creates an astute biopic. But can his understanding of a man, a scientist no less than J Robert Oppenheimer, hailed as father of the atomic bomb, be just another linear narrative? Well, it can’t be and it isn’t.

Going back and forth in time, it begins with Oppenheimer’s trial of sorts, a 1954 security hearing. Imagine the man who won USA World War II with his pivotal role in developing the bomb being vilified and questioned for his loyalty. Imagine the creator of the weapon of mass destruction developing moral qualms and advocating a pacifist stance after the bomb wreaked havoc on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It’s in this duality that the film finds its dramatic tension, as also in how science and politics intercut and coalesce.

As it takes us through the life and journey of this scientific genius, it’s as emotionally overwhelming an experience for the audience as it might have been for the man himself. ‘The bigger the star, the more violent its demise…’ In this line, Nolan, who has also written the film, clearly wants us to see and read more than just a scientific assertion on the death of stars.

Based on ‘American Prometheus’, a 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin, Nolan’s vision of the book and the man is as riveting in the taut and tense grilling of Oppenheimer as in the build-up to the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy, who plays the titular part, said in an interview, “I didn’t go after the physics, only after the man.” Only, there is enough physics and enough physicists in the film. Apart from those who made the atomic bomb possible, there is Albert Einstein. Whether Cillian brushed up his physics or not, the ‘Peaky Blinders’ actor is so good that at no point in the film can you disassociate him from the theoretical physicist. Not a single twitch, frown, grimace or smile is out of place. Not a single phase of his evolution from a 20-year-old homesick lad in Europe to the ‘mayor and sheriff’ at the secret project to a disillusioned physicist is out of sync with his body language.

The cast at hand is stellar and the casting impeccable. Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss, the guy who wants to bring Oppenheimer down, is, like always, spot-on. Matt Damon as the endearing general Leslie Groves, who puts Oppenheimer in charge of The Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory, is equally consummate. Rami Malek as David Hill, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr and Benny Safdie as Edward Teller — there is quite a star-studded galaxy, of men mostly. But Emily Blunt as Katherine, Oppenheimer’s wife, stands strong and firm in her support of her husband and vulnerable when he is under attack. In fact, take any role and the actors belong to the universe that Nolan has created with precision and visuals, and as we learn, without CGI effect.

As the film races towards its high point, the Trinity test — which is what Oppenheimer with a fascination for Indian spirituality called it — we brace for the final impact. ‘Such a thing can be heavy on your heart’, and it’s actually a heart-stopping moment. Not merely because the visual is spectacular but more importantly because the build-up is pregnant with anticipation, anxiety and cutting-edge tension. Ludwig Göransson’s music adds to the emotional arc and Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography heightens the mood of the film.

The final scene where Cillian as Oppenheimer talks about the chain reaction he may have set in not just in scientific terms but in the ongoing arms race, his admission is more than chilling. It haunts as much as it moves. This might be that rare Nolan movie where what he cares to say is apparent but no less impactful. The line presumably from ‘Bhagvadagita’ — ‘I become death, destroyer of worlds’ — is reiterated more than once in the film. But the film stands testimony to man’s power to create. And we are not just referring to Oppenheimer and the scientific community but this auteur called Nolan who binds us in a spell once more. ‘Theory can only take you this far’, but imagination… Check out, and you must, for yourself. ‘Genius is no guarantee of wisdom’, but of cinematic pleasure, it certainly is.