Oppenheimer

I finally got around to seeing this, and the biggest surprise was it didn't feel too long.  The sound and cinematography were spectacular in bringing concepts to life, but also showing the horror of the bomb without showing it. One definitely worth seeing in the cinema unless you have a huge tv screen and great surround sound. 

The subject matter, framed in a series of jumps around in time, looks at Oppenheimer's early years and involvement in the Manhattan Project through the frame of the McCarthy era and a senator with a hidden agenda (Robert Downey Jnr).  The machinations were intricate and Machiavellian, and it is to the film's credit that it kept such clarity throughout, constantly circling us back to the moral as well as political arguments for and against the bomb and what humans will do with it.   Murphy is his subtle best in this, becoming more haunted as time goes on and he becomes clearer in understanding what the politicians are really up to.  Honorable mention to  Matt Damon too, all bullish and solid, but sharp too. 

There's been a bit of a fuss about the treatment of women in the film and I did find that nude scene, where there is absolutely no equivalence between Ciaran Murphy being naked crossed legged in a chair compared with Florence Pugh doing the same, a bit uncomfortable.  But then I think that is probably how I was supposed to feel.  Overall I think it brings out the less than laudable behaviour from Oppenheimer and although the film fails the Bechdale test, that isn't really that surprising give the masculine environment the film portrays.   Florence Pugh is fierce and vulnerable as Jean and I loved Emily Blunt as Kitty.  So, I think that while the discussion is a good one to have,  I am not going to hold it against the film in this case. 

It 's was a bit pretentious in places, particularly some of the dialogue at the start, and not exactly a laugh a minute, but a very rewarding 3 hours.