[8.0/10] There are two sequences in Oppenheimer that are a metonym for the rest of the film. Early on, a young J. Robert Oppenheimer is given a hard time by his teacher, essentially punishing him for his human struggles by denying him the chance to see a lecture from his hero. So Oppenheimer, filled with frustration and a chance bit of inspiration, fills his professor’s apple with an injection of cyanide. He does the deed coldly and methodically, attends the lecture, and doesn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed that he’s essentially committed an act of attempted murder on someone who made his life miserable.
But when he wakes up in the morning, he is wracked with guilt and stricken with an urgency to undo what he’s done. He rushes to steal back the apple before the worst consequences of his choices take hold, something made all the more desperate when it’s his hero, Neils Bohr, not his jerk teacher, who’s about to take a bite. Spurred by his regrets, he snatches it out of Bohr’s hand before it can do its damage.
It’s a microcosm for how to account for Oppenheimer’s behavior for the building of the first atomic bomb. For so much of the film, he is single-minded to the point of being myopic on achieving his goal. To him, the United States needs nuclear weapons, and they need them now, because the Nazis are building them. Hitler and his goons are threatening Oppenheimer’s fellow Jews, and if he can help stop them, use his physics to prevent the Third Reich from gaining the upper hand, he feels he has a responsibility to do so.
So he ignores his good friend and fellow Jewish physicist, Rabi, who tells Oppenheimer he doesn’t want to participate in something that would wreak death upon the world. He dismisses the growing contingent of his Los Alamos workforce concerned about the ethics of what they’re building. He brushes off his colleagues from Chicago who want him to tell the American leadership not to act. He is full of justifications and rationalizations.
There is something workmanlike, methodical about his goal to produce the atomic bomb. He gently raises the objections of his colleagues, but presents himself as a vessel for communicating the views of others rather than injecting his own opinions. He is a man with a job to do, deadlines to meet, villains to defeat. And even when Germany is defeated, he’s still under orders, still anxious to see his work come to fruition, practically pacing when the day of the bombings arrives.
Only then, at his moment of triumph, once the job is done, he feels naught but the blood on his hands, the rot in his souls, the feeling that had been tucked away into a dark corner until the job was complete. The most bravura sequence in the film sees him in the moment of his greatest triumph, being cheered on by his fellow scientists, reveling in their victory, whilst being haunted by the gravity of what he hath wrought.
The sound, the light, the visions of blighted flesh and communities turn to ash, overwhelm his senses and drown out the singing of his praises. His ra-ra speech seems awkward and uncomfortable -- lacking in genuine fervor from someone whose emotional reckoning with what he’s done hits on a delay, like the time-displaced sound wave from his own bomb. Only after he’s done it, does he feel it, and start to wish he could take it back.
It is the apple again, a piece of nature poisoned, only now amplified in magnitude beyond comprehension. And it is the peculiar psyche of this astonishing man, suddenly made to feel the weight of destruction and history, wondering what he’s unleashed upon the world.
Writer-director Christopher Nolan has the audience feel that weight too. Clocking in at over three hours, Oppenheimer plays appropriately epic, not just as the story of the creation of the atomic bomb, but encompassing the life of its father that serves as a prelude, the regretful aftermath that leads him beyond that seminal moment, and the public clashes that consumed his life afterward.
In that, Nolan and company hit a number of the standard biopic beats. The early portions breeze through relationships and foundational experiences that, while specific to Oppenheimer, will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen a cinematic accounting of a historical figure. Grand speeches are given. Famous faces are introduced with suitable fanfare. The names of notable people and places are dropped with the freighted, portentous importance of an MCU post-credit scene.
And yet, there is a greater artfulness to what Nolan and his collaborators set out to do that sets Oppenheimer above its standard prestige comparators. Some of that is the pure aesthetics. If ever there were an argument for big screen viewing, it is the film’s grand atomic test -- a wash of light, columns of all-consuming flame, the straightjacket of silence that envelops all gazing upon it, and the sonic boom that punctures the moment. Theatrical viewing is a boon, maybe even necessary, to feel the full strength of that awe.
At the same time, Nolan’s team goes for more impressionsitic sequences amid their otherwise stately production. The aforementioned victory celebration gone awry is an achievement in using the cinematic form to contrast the external mask with the internal state. The way the trappings of the nuclear explosion intrude on Oppenheimer’s interrogation proves a creative way to show how the bombings haunt him as he struggles to reconcile his past fervor with his present regret. And in a similar vein, the transposition of his ex, depicted in full passionate lovemaking as his infidelity is laid bare on the public record, foregrounds the guilt and the anger between him and his wife in visceral terms.
There’s also more formal creativity at play. Beyond the nonlinear presentation, that juxtaposes past and present in canny ways, Oppenheimer offers not one but two frame stories. One is fission, the recollections that turn out to be part of Oppenheimer’s adversarial hearing on the renewal of his security clearance. The other is fusion, with still more recountings channeled through the Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s colleague and erstwhile admirer.
The tangle of the two gives the film leeway to play the contrast and compare game wherever necessary when it wants to put two meaningful moments side-by-side. It allows Nolan and his team to disorient the audience, lose them in the timeline to where the tumult of events washes over you. And it allows him to hide the ball, bringing the two storylines into jaw-dropping clarity right when it will have the greatest impact.
The choice to tell Oppenheimer’s story in color and Stauss’ part in black and white helps distinguish them so the viewer can keep some track. But it also helps code that we’re seeing these events through each’s differing perspective. That helps color their different takes on what happened, and shield the twist that Stauss is not one of Oppenheimer’s defenders suffering unfortunate guilt by association, but rather a bitter, resentful and conniving rival, prepared to throw Oppenheimer under the bus to feather his own nest.
Therein lies the grand turn and irony of the film. When Oppenheimer is willing to do the dirty work of powerful men without question, he is given everything he asks for. They build towns in the desert. They give him billions in resources. They push through his security clearance despite his occasional dalliances with communism and, worse yet for the times, with communists.
But when his conscience reemerges and he is a hindrance, not a help, to the cause of nuclear weaponry, men like Strauss turn that same infrastructure against him. He is dragged down by those jealous and scornful of his refusal to keep helping. He is written off by the President who championed him. He is torn asunder by forces greater than himself that, as none other than Einstein warns him, are ready to minimize and punish him once he’s no longer useful. And worse yet, Oppenheimer wants it; he thinks he deserves it.
There is something elemental, even Shakespearean in that. And yet, the grandest flaw of the film is that you do not always feel it.
Oppenheimer has its pitfalls. The film is remarkably brisk for a three-hour runtime, but you can sometimes feel Nolan trying to cram anything and everything into his feature, whether it’s truly essential or not, because it fascinates him. At moments, particularly after the big turn, we don’t need to be so deep in the weeds. Likewise, the script indulges in some of the corniest biopic tropes, from a Senate staffer casually dropping the name JFK, to the same staffer delivering a Sorkinesque speech about doing the right thing and matters bigger than one politician’s aspirations.
But the biggest of them is that despite Oppenheimer centering itself on one man’s growing guilt, questioning, and eventual self-flagellation, it often feels cold, lacking in feelling. Perhaps that’s appropriate for one anchored on scientists who are irregular around the margins, but who can be clinical in their work. The thing about Nolan’s filmography is that he’s often better at crafting characters who feel like avatars for big ideas than he is at developing them as three-dimensional people.
The same affliction permeates this movie, with the sweep of history and provocative notions about responsibility, myopia, urgency, and regret keenly felt, but the emotions of its central players, so key to the film, not always coming through with as much visceral clarity.
And yet, if there’s something that helps cover for that, it’s the downright relentless pace of the film. Part of how Oppenheimer makes the time fly by is the fact that it never stops. Clock the dialogue scenes. There’s barely a moment between retorts. There is a continual chugging in the film, conveying the urgent need to complete this task and the restlessness in Oppenheimer’s thoughts and history that led to it. The same goes for the score, which pounds, rich with sonic beauty and the ticking of geiger counters, making the broad jump across years culminating in the bomb’s deployment feel like one grand movement.
Until it stops. Two-thirds of the way through the film, the pace suddenly slackens. The score drops away. Freed from the irresistible pull of the mission for once, both Oppenheimer and the audience are given a chance to stop and reflect, and it’s then that the gravity of what’s been done truly starts to sink in. The way Nolan uses the pacing of his film to drive its central change of heart is masterful.
Because then it picks up again. Between the machinations of Stauss in his committee hearing, and the futile maneuvering of Oppenheimer and his allies before the body sent to rob him of his security clearance, and with it, his credibility, the rhythm kicks up anew, selling the controlled chaos that ensues to match the controlled chaos that preceded it. But in between is that quiet moment of clarity.
The rub of Oppenheimer is that the eponymous protagonist wants his punishment, no matter how unjust the source of it, because he wants to atone for his sins. He believes that, contrary to the warnings that the chance to destroy the world is near zero, he’s set off the chain reaction that will invite the apocalypse. He hopes this will be his penance, his chance to pay for his sins.
Because that’s the other sequence that serves as the metonym for Oppenheimer. Once he told his tempestuous lover, Jean Tatlock, that he would always answer. Then, when his life took a different turn, with a wife and children, he told her he couldn’t anymore. And in the absence of his intervention, she killed herself, her worst demons spiraling out toward destruction.
That is the reason Oppenheimer acts so swiftly and so gravely in trying to put a stop to this hell he has unleashed upon the world. Because he knows, in ways personal and devastating, what happens when he sits by and doesn’t intervene to stop the worst from happening, to blame yourself for the blood that’s spilt when you could have stepped in but instead shut yourself off. He has felt that loss, and in his post-Hiroshima activism, he feels it once more.
What if you didn’t get to the apple in time? What if you couldn’t stop what you’d started? What if the best and worst of your nature caught up to you at once? For a troubled world, much as for a troubled friend, J. Robert Oppenheimer fears that it’s already too late.
While Pixar’s Toy Story certainly made game-changing technological achievements as the world’s first wholly computer-animated feature film, it never detracted from its thematically rich narrative that is so brilliantly attuned to the traumatic existential crises we humans experience. The impact of this intimate connection with the viewer is further enhanced by the similarity of its two main characters’ struggles. Being his owner Andy’s favorite toy, Sheriff Woody has enjoyed the luxuries of constant playtime and the role of authority figure among his plastic brethren, developing a fierce loyalty for Andy alongside a concerning selfishness, so when he discovers Andy’s new birthday present, a high-tech action figure named Buzz Lightyear, he responds to this possible replacement with a cutthroat hostility in the hopes of avoiding the bottom of the toychest, directly contradicting his posse’s philosophy of simply “being there for Andy”. But through a series of trials and tribulations, Woody comes to reach an emotional synthesis with Buzz after an understanding of his own struggles: this new toy never intended to be a threat; he was simply fulfilling Andy’s needs, yet was also facing an inner crisis himself, upon realizing he actually was a toy, not the elite Saturday-morning cartoon space ranger he’s modeled after. Catharsis is finally reached not only when Woody regains respect among his friends, but when he inspires and reminds Buzz of his endless worth as the most revered figure in his young owner’s life. While Toy Story certainly works as a witty buddy-comedy-adventure, its superficial entertainment all plays second fiddle to these toys’ sophisticated psyches struggling to find common ground, and it boasts analogous parallels with those facing midlife crises, a child fearing a deficit of love and attention when a newborn sibling comes around, as well as those taking the next step from childhood bliss to the strenuous real world.
[7.5/10] I should have known. The original title for Quentin Tarantino’s alternate universe World War II story was “Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France”. The recycling of the title should have prepared me for the fact that this was not just going to be the story a few composite characters made disturbingly adjacent to the Tate Murders. Instead, it is another alternate history tale, where the Manson Family decides to go after a neighboring character actor, only to be stopped in their tracks by his trusty stunt double and a conveniently-placed flame thrower.
What I can’t tell you is why. The cinch of “What If?” stories is examining the import of the differences between one timeline and another. There is catharsis, and also indictment on both sides of the screen, to see the Basterds wipe out the Nazi brass. And I suppose, in a similar way, there is relief in seeing Tarantino steer his film so close to the grisly deeds that shocked a nation’s conscience, only to show our would-be heroes preventing it. But Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood doesn't feel like it’s making the same sort of point.
Instead, it’s a character story. The Tate Murders, the atmosphere of famous people around and averting disaster, feels in service of the two made-up protagonists than the other way around. It’s a story about a solid actor, pushing through his fuck-upery and potentially stumbling onto his big break. And it’s also about his best friend -- put upon but uncomplaining and possessing more sense and ability than his benefactor -- keeping the aspiring thespian out of trouble.
But it’s also just a slice of life movie. Once Upon a Time... is more a collection of loosely connected vignettes set around a particular time and place than it is a narrative. There’s nothing wrong with that. Say what you will about Tarantino, but the man knows how to write a scene. The sixties texture is superb. The needle drops are outstanding. The interactions are compelling if a touch rudderless. For a nearly three hour movie where not much of consequence happens until the final reel, it’s never boring, which is no small feat.
In its best mode, the film works as a character study for its three (well, two and a half) main characters. Rick Dalton’s ride as a struggling actor is compelling. The notion of a man who feels like he’s on the verge of being a has-been, finding his light and, through the most bizarre of circumstances, maybe catching his big break, is an engaging one. Tarantino himself has rescued the careers of more than one talented character actor all but forgotten by the Hollywood machine. There’s something about Dalton’s story that is, if nothing else, true to Tarantino’s brand in that the big upshot of the Tate Murders being largely averted is that a solid performer gets his unexpected chance to shine.
Along the way, the film wrings the pathos from a fuck-up thinking that he’s at the end of his rope, finding a performance he wasn’t sure he had in him, and proving to himself that he can do this before his prayers are answered. Leonardo DiCaprio occasionally veers into his “more acting, not better acting” mode, but he delivers the performance called for in his and Dalton’s key scene, and finds the wounded heart of a well-to-do manchild.
Brad Pitt is also a joy to watch as Dalton’s stunt double, Cliff Booth. There’s a cool-under-pressure matter of factness to the character, cutting the figure of someone who takes all the ridiculous or insane things he confronts on a daily basis in stride. It’s hard to say what the point of Cliff is, beyond being a sort of underappreciated guardian angel, whose seemingly done some bad shit but who seems to look out for people when he doesn't necessarily have to. He’s an engaging presence, perhaps there to show how people whose names you’ve never heard of end up having outsized, essential roles in the lives of the people whose names you do. Dalton seems to recognize that in the end, vindicating a camaraderie that he didn’t quite appreciate until it saved his life.
And then there’s Sharon Tate. For all the controversy around Margot Robbie’s screen time and number of lines in this movie, it’s fair to question what purpose her and Tarantino’s realization of Tate serves. As the only real person to have a major presence in the film, hers comes the closest to the “for want of a nail” theme in a typical alternate history story. You get the sense of someone excited about her work, ready for and worthy of more, making her an almost angelic presence in the film. If there’s anything that sells the tragedy of what happened in real life, the pleasing joy of wondering of what preventing it would mean, it comes in the form of saving someone who, in the film at least, is so pure.
That said, this is a film that shows some blind spots. There’s a lot of male gaze here, not just on Robbie -- who mostly dances and smiles through the feature -- but also on the female members of the Manson family who, like Robbie, are conspicuously panned and shot and framed with certain features emphasized for little-to-no narrative reason. This is also still a Tarantino film, so you’re going to have multiple prominent shots of bare feet, and for a writer who’s created some outstanding female characters, they largely get the short shrift here.
You’re also going to get the things Tarantino does well here. He creates one-scene (technically two-scene) wonders like a little girl who is a committed and sensitive thespian. You get tense scene construction when Cliff visits the Spahn Ranch or the Manson Family invades Dalton’s home. You get bright primary colors and creative shots while period-appropriate tunes play in the background. You get the combination of the funny and the gory in the way that’s becoming a calling card for the director, from an attacker amusingly getting subdued with a big can of dog food, to a disquieting sequence where another’s skull is smashed in by the fireplace. If your goal is to just hang out with Tarantino’s usual trappings for 2+ hours, Once Upon a Time... is the movie for you.
But if you want more than a mostly low key day in the life of some nicely-sketched but not overly memorable characters, you should probably look elsewhere. There’s nothing wrong with crafting a world, a set of personalities, that it’s just enjoyable to spend time with. But with Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Tarantino seems to want to make some grander statement with his break from real life events and focus on a pair of relative nobodies who stumble into snuffing out a tragedy, but unlike his protagonist, he never quite gets there.
