Oppenheimer is a three-hour long breathtaking film filled with drama, science, and concentration, leaving you on the edge of your seat as everything comes together. It makes sense that it could be this year’s hit movie.
Created by Christoper Nolan, known for many long films filled to the brim with thought-provoking scenes and dark themes, such as “Interstellar” and “Inception.” Nolan takes the 2005 biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherbien, and makes it into a lengthy dark film capturing the thoughts, the trial and error, and the life, J. Robert Oppenheimer had from the point of college to the making and success of the first atomic bomb. Not only does Nolan capture all of this but he also plays with the visuals, having fun playing with the physics Oppenheimer was focused on, stars. There are moments throughout the film where stars appear and insight on atoms and space come together, giving the film such a unique visual for the audience.
Beyond the creativity and the take Nolan took on Oppenheimer to make this a hit of the year, the actors also helped to pull the movie together. Starring big name actors and actresses, such as Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Florence Pugh (Jean Tatlock), Robert Downey Jr. (Lewis Strauss), and Emily Blunt (Kitty Oppenheimer), it was clear it would end up being a well-acted and made film. The whole casting was spectacular. Which could be predicted since, you have these huge names performing in the film. Also due to majority of the cast being well-known, it definitely is a factor playing into dragging some into theaters and causing the film to become a wide-world hit.
Beyond the cast as a whole, Murphy, playing the lead, immediately grabs the audience’s attention, off the bat and is who we are all focused on. This being such a big role, Murphy captures Oppenheimer in a way I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing so. Not only does he share similar features in the face and body as J. Robert Oppenheimer did, but he also did a stellar job capturing who he really was. Murphy would read Hindu text, and learn Dutch, trying to perfect his character through quotes and become who Oppenheimer really was. Not only did he tackle learning nearly 3,000 words in Dutch, but he tackled the body and image of the man himself. Murphy would skip meals and eat small portions, to look like the thin, chain-smoker Oppenheimer was. However, through filming, this did lead to most of the cast becoming concerned, but, Murphy spoke out about this and mentioned how he felt like he had to do it to perfect everything. He knew this movie was going to be big, and not just something skimmed over, so he found risking a few meals wouldn’t be too bad if the outcome was to partake in one of the largest films of the year.
Apart from all of that, social media took by storm the #Barbenheimer. A hashtag that began when fans found out ‘Barbie’ would be getting released on the same day. Most found this to be hilarious, since you have this pink, feminist, plastic-fantasy movie, going against this dark, twisted, biopic film, in the box office. While this trend was taking the internet by storm it led to what some would predict a competition between the films. However, in the long run, the directors and cast saw this trend as a launch to heighten the movies that they created. Due to this, many of the cast from both sides would praise the other film. And from both films, the cast and directors also urge everyone who hasn’t seen ‘Oppenheimer’ to buy a ticket, sit down and watch the film about the man who created the bomb that would kill tens of thousands, causing a flood of regret from the man himself who changed everything.
