ratbones

Saw Oppenheimer today and I have thoughts.

This film is visually incredible. It uses exclusively practical effects, and uses lots of them in super-artsy, beautiful, haunting, abstract ways, as well as for the more obvious concrete stuff: the actual Trinity nuclear test was staggering, and made stomach-turning use of the speed of sound. A scene in which Oppenheimer gives a ~rousing~ speech at Los Alamos following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while plagued by visions of the raw human horror they have just wrought is probably going to be stuck in my head for a while.

The movie is at its best during the middle section, which is focused on the Manhattan Project directly. Along with the science, this part digs into the social and psychological landscape of the scientists making the bomb: they convinced each other and themselves to go along because of the looming threat of Hitler and Nazism, and then, upon Hitler's defeat, either backtracked years too late to stop it or made up some other justification to continue; they had sufficient naivete to imagine that the A-bomb would "stop all war"; they were swept along on the excitement of scientific progress without letting themselves think too hard.

It's not at all clear what category Oppenheimer himself fell into, as he's inscrutable through most of the movie in a way that feels accurate but also vaguely infuriating. You look at these people and think, how are they not seriously collectively asking themselves "are we the baddies?" which I guess is really the essential question about the Manhattan Project. I respect the decision not to try to make a neat story out of that, because there's no right answer and it just fundamentally doesn't make sense, but it's narratively annoying. But, well, the history is narratively annoying (understatement).

The ratcheting tension as the film moves along towards Trinity (and Nagasaki and Hiroshima) is really excellent. I didn't look at the time or even away from the screen, I think, through this whole middle part. I didn't want to miss the visuals of New Mexico, the labs, or the bomb itself.

Okay, backtracking. The first act of the film shows some of Oppenheimer's grad student days and the beginnings of modern quantum physics in academia. It shows or namedrops just about every famous early 20th century physicist like they're checking off a list, which, honestly, is pretty fun. In general this bit is enjoyable, although it would have been more interesting if the central figure was just a hair more expressive. Still, there are moments in there that provide some insight into the guy. I won't spoil details. Some of them are funny, some of them kind of make him look dangerously unstable from the get-go. The movie probably lingers a little longer than it needs to here, but not egregiously so.

In contrast, the third act of the film, which takes place after the bombs and mainly in Washington DC, was interminable. This movie made me sit through hearings. I have some notion of why someone thought this was good idea, thought it added complexity and a fuller picture of Oppenheimer's life and reputational downfall(s), but I ended up with no one to root for (hint: everyone sucks! All of these old white dudes are terrible, and not even in novel ways!) and, just, I was bored. It's almost comically piddling. Why would I care about political appointments and security clearances in light of the near-apocalyptic events that came before? Was that supposed to be a commentary on human pettiness in the face of existential threats? Someone who likes political drama more than me might have a different experience, though. I hate this stuff at the best of times and might have missed the point out of sheer spite. Hearings!

I'm also kind of gobsmacked at the misogyny. Women are not Christopher Nolan's strong suit, and this is a movie set primarily in the 40s, so I wasn't even expecting much. The women working on the Manhattan Project get maybe two moments, which boil down to "it sure is rough being a female scientist in the 40s!" rather than like...doing anything. Okay, fine, tolerable. But the majority of female screentime is dedicated to women Oppenheimer is fucking, and the overarching theme of those scenes is "bitches be crazy". These women are miserable, yet incapable of grasping Oppenheimer's apparently much more important variety of misery. They are irresponsible and capricious, immature and needy, mentally ill and drunk. Thirsty for Oppenheimer's dick, for reasons I could not even begin to imagine. The wife is pregnant, or neglecting her kids, or sometimes doing laundry.

I hated it. I hated it so much I came out of the theater pissed about this and only remembered all the parts I'd liked later. There's a lot to love in this movie but christ. It is subtly hilarious to depict women as unstable shrilling harpies when almost all the men in the movie are cheerfully making a nuclear bomb like that's a normal fucking job to have. There could have been commentary there -- who's really the crazy bitch here? But I don't think the filmmakers even noticed what they were doing.

(Caveat: I think in the last hour of the movie they were trying to frame Kitty Oppenheimer's unstable shrilling as, like, hey she actually has some good points here and she's angry for a good reason! But they still decided to film it in such a way that all the men are stonefaced and she looks like an emotional basketcase, so I was unconvinced. YMMV.)

If you're wondering if there are characters of color in this movie: not really. They're in the same bucket as the female scientists. Existing in the background at Los Alamos, with a couple speaking lines. The movie chooses not to depict the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki directly, and I haven't developed an opinion on that choice just yet.

Okay, that's it, I guess. I'd say it's a movie worth seeing in cinema because those earth-shaking nuclear effects are just not going to be the same on your laptop.

ETA: Yoda Einstein. Love him. Will not be explaining.

ETA2: My cinema had the captions on for this movie, presumably because Nolan.