Belle and Armand saw Oppenheimer and so should you…

Belle: So, Armand… Oppenheimer
Armand: Yes
Belle: Three hour movie.
Armand: Yes
Belle: Sound. So. Much. Sound.
Armand: If you are in any way auditorily sensitive I would strongly advise you to wear ear plugs because it’s concert levels of sound in this film. The sound is loud enough that you will genuinely feel it in your body.
Belle: Yeah, Christopher Nolan and I need to have a conversation because I do not want to feel attacked every damn time I go see a movie of his. That being said, before we get into the nitty gritty, what did you think of the film overall?

Armand: I feel like this is a very complicated movie. What I mean by that is, if you’re knowledgeable about the topic or have read the book it’s based on, American Prometheus, you’ll get a lot more out of it. I think if you work in The Sciences, it’s stunning. You know Lawrence Livermore as ‘The Lab’, you don’t know the person. You’ve heard of Edward Teller, but you haven’t seen him, the same with Enrico Fermi. I think seeing a lot of these seminal science figures of the 20th Century, like Albert Einstein, as fully rounded human beings is breathtaking. However, if you don’t know the topic I can understand why so many people have come out of this movie utterly horrified that these things happened. If you don’t know the history of how the United States developed the atomic bomb this could be a blood-curdling experience.
Belle: Now, I know the history but I actually made a point of not reading the book as I knew you were reading it. I wanted to come at it, not blind, as I know about The Manhattan Project, but less aware of this particular biography. Although, anyone who’s read comics as much as I do, specifically Watchmen, knows about the Manhattan Project. That’s not even getting into if you have any basic knowledge of American history, which I have, or are a child of the military, which I am, or married to someone who is an American history nut, like I am, you know who made the atomic bomb.
That being said, even knowing what’s going on, knowing what’s going to happen, the moment the bomb goes off is one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen on film in a long, long time. Why? Because it happened and that’s what makes it upsetting.
Armand: It’s funny, for me that wasn’t the most horrifying moment, it was the moment after. When Oppenheimer is trying to give a speech to the team that created it. As it’s truly starting to dawn on him what they just did, and the consequences of such actions, that he shouldn’t be celebrating anything but, because he’s the leader of this project he has to play this particular role.
Christopher Nolan does something that’s both incredibly obvious but also incredibly brave, which is, if you’ve realized what you’ve just done that you can’t help but imagine what the people around you would look like once the bomb went off.

When I was growing up I had a socialist history professor who made me read up on Hiroshima when I was in high school; it’s seeing people with their skin peeling off; or their bodies reduced to ash and that moment where Oppenheimer thinks he’s stepped into the husk of a charred human body is the moment where I knew I would believe everything that happens next in terms of why Oppenheimer is terrified of what he knows is next: the hydrogen bomb.
That’s the moment he realizes he really has become Death. The Destroyer of Worlds.

Belle: That’s one of the things I really loved, that he and, to a lesser extent Einstein, started this ball rolling on weapons of mass destruction and I loved that they didn’t ignore that. Einstein in particular is canonized and parodied as this bumbling old man/mad genius and this movie doesn’t do that. Instead it lets Einstein be a man full of regrets who knows exactly what he’s done and that he’s going to be wrestling with it for the rest of his life.
Which, speaking to that, it’s amazing to me that Einstein has, what, 4 scenes?
Armand: If that many…
Belle: I know there’s at least one scene we see from 3 different points of view and then an additional scene. All of which reinforce that he knew the chain reaction he had set off. Yet, because this film is so well written it feels like he’s in far more of the film than he actually is.
In fact one of my favorite moments in the film is the aforementioned 3 POV scene because it shows how we’re all influenced by our own biases and insecurities and how that can be good or very, very bad.
Which leads perfectly into characters and performances, specifically Oppenheimer and Strauss. While Cillian Murphy is absolutely impeccable as Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr. is a revelation. His performance: the life he gives to Strauss and the choices he makes, that are real choices, things that really came out during his confirmation hearings, things that are now etched in history; is breathtaking. It was such smart casting because it sets all of our preconceived notions on a dime. This is Iron Man! We’ve been conditioned to think of him in a certain way and RDJ and Nolan use that against us and it’s amazing.

Armand: It was fascinating watching him and Murphy play off each other because Oppenheimer has a lot of the same characteristics. Oppenheimer has echoes of Strauss and vice-versa and there was definitely a culture clash as Strauss was a proud American Jew, meanwhile Oppenheimer had learned to speak Greek, Dutch, German, Sanskrit, yet never learned Yiddish.
Belle: Because he wanted to pass, but, at the same time, the main reason Oppenheimer wanted to be a part of the war effort is because the Germans were killing his people.
Armand: He was very much a product of his time. He went to The Ethical School in New York, one of the first social justice schools. Where they had Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois come in as lecturers, and that very much influenced his outlook on the world around him.
Belle: As an aside, if you pay attention in the background Washington and Du Bois are there. I was very pleasantly surprised that so many prominent Black and Brown folx were scattered throughout the film as, let’s face it, Christopher Nolan does not have the best track record when it comes to making BIPOCs in his films actual human beings, or even casting BIPOCs in parts they should be cast in.
Armand: True, but credit where it’s due, there was a concerted effort to cast Jewish actors and BIPOCs as the very real people they are playing, who are of the same descent and it was very much appreciated.
Belle: Cillian Murphy is, I believe, the only main character played by someone who isn’t of the race or ethnicity of the person they’re portraying and I think that’s a deliberate choice due to the above mentioned need to pass that Oppenheimer had. This is the one time I think it was a good choice.

Speaking of, the casting of this film was bonkers good. From David Krumholtz, to Jack Quaid, to the one and only, the criminally underrated Josh Hartnett, it was insane and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Armand: The casting was the likes of Cecil B. DeMille in terms of the right actors for the right parts. I still can’t believe they got Florence Pugh to not only play the character she plays but to display the level of emotional and physical vulnerability she does.  I absolutely adore that they also have Murphy show the same level of vulnerability, which is something we usually only get from women on film. Then there’s Matt Damon as General Groves.

Belle: Man. Listen. You know I hate Matt Damon with the fire of a thousand burning suns.
Armand: I know.
Belle: So, when I say that Matt Damon absolutely earns his Oscar nomination in this film…
Armand: Exactly.
Belle: He was phenomenal. He deserves his best supporting actor nomination. Also, real quick, let’s talk about Alden Ehrenreich. I have said since I saw Cocaine Bear that he was done dirty in Solo and this film confirms it.
Armand: Absolutely.
Belle: He doesn’t say a lot. It’s all in his reactions and they way realizations play out across his face. There’s a moment where you can see the pure rage in his face and watching him dial it back to professionalism…so, so good.
Armand: Agreed, it makes me want to go see other things he was in because he’s so good in this.
Belle: Also, I’m going to need Dane DeHaan and David Dastmalchian to stop playing characters that I want to punch in the face. Repeatedly.

Armand: This was also very much the Emily Blunt show.
Belle: Yes. My gawd.
Armand: When I tell you this whole movie falls apart without her.
Belle: Yesssss. She is the glue, she holds this whole movie together. From the first moment we see  Kitty in the office sitting behind Oppeneheimer, seething, you know what time it is. Kitty Oppenheimer is not here for the play, play.
Armand: Exactly. If you cast a lesser actress Kitty comes across very, very weak. In Blunt’s hands you see who she is, flaws and all, but also how she is the reason this man didn’t run screaming for the hills or lose his mind at various stages of his life. She was not always a good person, but she had strength and fearlessness. It reminds me of what Dr. Carr says, and it’s the  genius of this entire move: every angel has a devil on their shoulder and every devil has a moment of angelic grace. And, in this film, we get to see that. That’s the tragedy of the story. These people gather to try and do something good to stop war…
Belle: And in the long run made things exponentially worse.
Armand: And then they have to reconcile to themselves the consequences of their actions. 
Belle: Okay, we have to move to special effects and sound!
Armand: It’s impossible to talk about the special effects and not talk about the sound mixing. Now I’ll give Nolan credit, I love that he used practical effects. There is little to no CGI in this film and it makes everything so much better.
Belle: Yes! The use of practicals just makes it genuinely more effective and disturbing.
Armand: As a student of history, looking and realizing that they built the actual physical bomb to show the sheer scale of what it was really like, was mind-blowing. The fact that they actually recorded particles and atoms splitting to show how Oppeneheimer’s mind works was fantastic. He brought a lot of his prior experience to this and it shows. The fact that there’s no CGI amplifies the horror of what is happening. I think that if it was CGI it wouldn’t affect you the same way.
Belle: It left me with a physical ache when the bomb went off and I don’t think that would’ve hit the same had it been CGI.
Armand: Exactly, and the sound is an integral part of this but, again, I cannot emphasize this enough: if you are someone who is acoustically sensitive you need to wear ear-plugs or watch this when it comes out on streaming. You will feel this sound like you’re sitting in an arcade playing a game in surround sound or like you’re at a concert in the front row.
Belle: Yeah, I still felt the sound in my body an hour later. Which, when they take the sound away, makes it even more effective. I felt like I was thrown back in my seat. I almost want to see this movie in a theatre where the seats move with the sound.
Armand: It reminds me of when I saw The Dark Knight in Imax and the boat scene and this was an entire movie like that. Nature hasn’t caught up to what they’ve done yet, but when it does, it’s never going to be the same. 

Belle: It’s not often that I think a movie is needed but, this movie? This is a film that needs to be seen, especially with the rise of facism all around the world. We need to all ask ourselves how far are we willing to go to combat it and, more importantly I think, how far is too far. Real history is really important. Acknowledging it, learning from it, is important and this movie is absolutely needed at this particular time.
Armand: With the rise of A.I. this movie couldn’t come at a better time. We need to ask ourselves: just because we can do a thing, should we? This movie shows the consequences of humanity’s hubris and how the ripple effects of our choices go far beyond our lifetimes.

Five Prophets out of Five