Atomic Acting
PRAISE: Like everyone one else I mainly learned about the Atomic Age through history books. Of course there were a couple of documentaries I watched over the years and I just started reading the graphic novel The Bomb. But as far as movies about the Atomic Age I can only remember the involving at times movie Fat Man and Little Boy. This movie in the hands of Director Christopher Nolan is much more than the aforementioned and its a good and bad thing.
There are tons of actors in this film all bringing something to the table. At the forefront are Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer
Emily Bunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer ,Matt Damon as Leslie Groves ,Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss,Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence,Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, and David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi
Oppenheimer was a complicated man with his leanings towards communism and his relationships with various women who came with there own complications and this is stunningly brought out in some key scenes.
It was interesting to watch how the race to build an Atomic Bomb felt like a fevered competition with Nazi Germany but evolved into a matter of life and death.
I really enjoyed how the film displayed that at first there were some that were not fully on board or Gung Ho about creating an Atomic Bomb.
Another great moment or various moments in the movie is when we see Oppenheimer being questioned about his ties to communism but the fact that they only sternly warned him about this during the bombs creation all adds up to fake outrage because they basically got what they wanted from him.
Nolan also includes some stripped bare moments that were really effective. I thought a lot of moments played really well especially ones about possible spies being among the makers of the bomb.
The acting is great and there are some good visuals.
PROBLEMS: I wish there had been more to what is given in the film about Oppenheimers complicated relationship with his wife Kitty . A couple of things are touched on but its as if Nolan said well yeah she experienced that lets move on. The pacing is definitely uneven making the movie feel extremely drawn out.
Scale of 1 to 10 an 8