Two very different films which just so happened to open on the same day but managed to strike a nerve around the world and... rather handily...rejuvenated a certain passion and excitement for getting people back to the movie theaters.
The "Barbenheimer" Phenomenon is particularly thrilling because you have two films that managed to unite audiences and critics alike in a way that feels a lot rarer than we see these days.
Barbie, which I reviewed earlier this year (HERE), may have hit more of zeitgeist zone thanks to having what could arguably be considered a plot/style that was palatable to a larger audience.
Sure, I am not going to knock Barbie for achieving what it did and, frankly, I am thrilled that Greta Gerwig was able to be the first female filmmaker to break the billion-dollar mark at the Box Office. It was a film that could've been a colossal disaster but ended up sticking the landing. With that, she has the highest grossing film of 2023, the highest grossing film of Warner Brothers, and the 14th highest grossing film of all time.
Then you have Oppenheimer, which came in as the third highest grossing film of all time behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie and managed to gross just shy of a billion.
This is where I can't help but feel completely and totally elated.
Whether you want to link it to the "battle" with Barbie or the clout that Christopher Nolan has accrued as a filmmaker over the last 20 years, there is something so gratifying about a 3-hour film that doesn't pander to its audience or condescend to them while dealing stuffy topics such as scientific research and committee hearings becoming one of the greatest successes of the year both critically and financially.
I think if I even had a negative opinion on Oppenheimer, it would've been hard to deny or ignore the true achievement that it managed to grasp.
But no... I didn't have a negative opinion of Oppenheimer.
In fact, it might seem cheap to say it is a favorable opinion...but perhaps it is closer to a rapturous one.
There has been a lot of talk this year with two films that have extremely long runtimes: Oppenheimer being one and Killers of the Flower Moon (review on that coming soon) being the other.
When a film is released with a runtime that is approaching the 3-hour mark, you are truly playing with fire at that point. Does your film earn that runtime, or could your film afford another trip to the editor's office for a 25-minute trim?
When I sat down to watch Oppenheimer, I thought I was prepared for the journey but didn't realize what I was truly in for.
This movie felt like relentless roller coaster and a lot of that credit obviously goes to Nolan and his editor Jennifer Lame. Within the first few minutes of the film, it was almost as if we were cresting the top of a hill and then we dropped. Scenes fly at us, characters weave in and out, the linear doesn't always seem clear at first, and information is handed to us and then moved away so the next beat can begin to quickly breathe.
As the film progressed, I began thinking that the pacing and the tone made it feel like we were inside our own atomic bomb watching the fragments of this story unfold. It is that pacing that truly makes this film something to behold.
Forgive me for the hyperbole as I am not sure if I am forgetting another film at the moment, but I would be prepared to accept the statement that Oppenheimer is one of the best paced films I have ever seen...and that is saying a whole hell of a lot considering it is 3 hours long.
Christopher Nolan has outdone himself here.
I can't exactly say that I have been some kind of rabid fan of his work compared to a lot of other film bro types, but I did love some of his work such as Memento and Inception, and I highly respect what he did with his Batman Trilogy.
His work here is beyond exceptional...and yes, I would actually say this is his masterwork to date...and will likely not be topped.
The film covers a fairly expansive period of J. Robert Oppenheimer's life: his studies at Cambridge in 1926 up through the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, the development of the atomic bomb, the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his eventual fall from grace with the 1954 Security Hearings...although we do see a glimpse of his 1963 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony when we, as a country, seemed ready to give him a rehabilitation.
Nolan's script zigzags throughout time and insists you keep up with the pace...and I was enthralled. With so many boiler-plate biopic films year after year, I loved that I was seeing a film that was daring to do things with a non-linear narrative and trusts that we were able to contain all of the information we needed. In many cases, some of the callbacks at the end felt like delicious rewards.
I will come back to Nolan in a moment, but I do want to address the ensemble of actors here.
We get strong and sterling work from the likes of Matt Damon and Josh Hartnett and even a great little cameo of Gary Oldman playing President Harry S. Truman...but I want to discuss Florence Pugh, Robert Downey, Jr., Emily Blunt, and Cillian Murphy.
With Pugh and Blunt, there is a frustration in that I really wish Nolan took time to give us more with their characters. If there is anything negative that I can say about the film, it is that these two actresses deserved more.
Pugh plays Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist with whom Oppenheimer has a romantic history with and is officially put under FBI surveillance due to her being a member of the Communist Party. She eventually commits suicide, and her death devastates Oppenheimer even though he is now married Katherine 'Kitty' (Emily Blunt). Pugh doesn't have much screentime, but her uneasy emotional state as Jean certainly gives the role more weight than might have been given had it been a lesser actress. Following her work in two films from 2019: Little Women and Midsommar, I am truly excited to watch the rest of her career unfold.
Blunt's Kitty is even more frustrating because Nolan will give her moments involving her alcoholism or the bitter rage that she has for the people out to get her husband during the 1954 hearings, and I kept finding myself longing for her to come back whenever she would disappear for very long gaps of time.
Emily Blunt has shockingly never received an Oscar nomination and I do feel, at this moment, that she will likely get her first nomination for Oppenheimer. Despite the relatively mess the Supporting Actress category seems to be currently, I don't think Blunt will pull off a win...but I do think that far lesser performances have done so. Blunt is arguably playing something of a "suffering housewife" stereotype, but I do think she manages to find enough in the small moments to make her compelling in ways that seem unexpected.
You also have Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, the man who sets the path for Oppenheimer's hopeful downfall. Likely to also get an Oscar nomination, I don't think he will end up winning, but I think this was a key example of a performance where the actor seemingly got lost in the character. Sure, I may have known I was watching RDJ onscreen, but I felt like he was doing a level of character work that felt incredibly fresh from him.
And then that leads us to Cillian Murphy.
Could Murphy win the Oscar for his role?
I think it is possible.
Would it be deserved?
Yes.
Yes, it would be.
I still have to see other contenders, of course...but I feel comfortable saying that even if I somehow end up preferring another performance, there is no way to ignore the fact that Murphy would be worthy in his own right.
Award winning performances are often known for being about big and brash emotional journeys, but this isn't a big or brash role. This is true subtlety, but it also feels like subtlety at its most volatile. There are moments when you see the grief and concern on Murphy's face, and you feel like he is going to explode without it even coming close to looking melodramatic. Even in just his relatively normal scenes where he is discussing scientific research, his whole demeanor and approach to the character is simply investing.
All in all - we have a truly epic leading role overseeing a truly eclectic ensemble of actors...and it is all brought together by Christopher Nolan's vision.
I do think there is a strong chance that Oppenheimer, based on the high acclaim from audiences and critics, will be a viable candidate to take the top prize but even if that doesn't happen, I think Nolan is very likely to win Best Director.
With the success and esteem that Nolan has built, it seems like the abundance of praise being heaped upon Oppenheimer makes for the perfect opportunity to reward Nolan with his first Oscar.
And this wouldn't be like Scorsese winning for The Departed after losing for much superior work time and time again. Nolan would have the distinction of winning an Oscar that may be overdue but is actually richly deserved and for what is the best work of his career.
One might argue that the film contains one of the typical Nolan tropes that he is often attached to: emotional distance. While I would agree that Nolan films can suffer from this, I certainly didn't feel it here. The rapid pace of the film might leave some thinking that we don't get enough time to become truly invested in these people...and yes, I think that this does effect Pugh and Blunt the most...but I think Nolan gives us what we need for the most part. It also helps that we have the ensemble that we do, because Murphy's tortured antihero almost single handedly elevates the film to another level.
Oppenheimer was an extraordinary effort. It may have made me wish for little changes here and there, but the final product simply left me overwhelmed.
It is Nolan's best film, easily one of the best films of 2023, and will likely be on the best of the decade list as well. I have said for many years know that my favorite Nolan film was his second: Memento.
In many ways, Memento is the film that I think can arguably be closer to Oppenheimer in terms of how it presents itself: multiple timelines and quick cuts. It begs you to pay attention. After years of films that were a lot about spectacle and less about a strong story, Nolan found the right mix of spectacle and the early narrative works such as Memento and The Prestige.
It lived up to the hype for me....and has a final moment that truly hits you hard.
9.5/10
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