Following a satisfying and refreshing Barbie screening, I restocked my movie snacks, and returned to Theater 1 for Oppenheimer, excited to participate in the cultural event of the decade. Secretly, I hoped Oppenheimer would redeem Nolan in my mind, seeing as I adored so many of his earlier films, but could not find anything to attach myself to in Tenet, and remembered quite literally nothing of Dunkirk.
As I sat through this movie, watching my own hope devolve rapidly into disappointment, I thought back to two other highly praised movies I bought tickets for - stars in my eyes - and ended up resenting.
I had hope when the first five minutes of The Batman felt like a direct rip off Twilight, but lost it pretty quickly when the uninspired Catwoman subplot made it clear this movie was taking itself seriously. What disappointed me so much about The Batman is it was so close to being Camp, and therefore permissible in its self-serious, cliché glory, but didn’t quite take it all the way there. I think there’s still hope that I can enjoy this movie in a silly way, but most people I’ve heard from seem to love The Batman with no acknowledgement of the definitely-present-but-debatably-intentional satirical undertones, which - I’m sorry - I just cannot respect.
The Worst Person In The World is my favorite movie to hate. The title makes you think the film is going to have an unlikeable protagonist that you find yourself empathizing with despite her faults. WRONG. The man who wrote this movie is uninterested in unlikeable women, and instead wrote a sneaky manic-pixie-dream-girl that men could feel good about falling in love with because she’s “damaged” and outwardly “feminist”. I found her absolutely insufferable. This film is not specifically about the female experience, but it is, which Joachim Trier was wholly unequipped to write about, as evidenced by the feminist one liners he sprinkled throughout that could have been taken directly from 2014 Tumblr. Like the running-through-the-frozen-world scene, these woke quips were presented with an air of “look at my smart, original idea,” but were neither original, nor all that smart.
Christopher Nolan released Oppenheimer the same day as Barbie because he knew he made a shitty movie and wanted to cover it up. I SAID WHAT I SAID. The first act was rushed and cared more about setting viewers up for a classic Nolan punchline than giving us a foundation for a character we should care about. Opening shots took us right into the political “heart” of the film, and also right into a loud, unearned crescendo of a severely vexing score. Maybe it was just my theater, but the heavy-handed sound design had me repeatedly wishing for both subtitles and earplugs.
Florence Pugh was naked in over half her screen time, and if this did not bother you, I beg you to think about whether it was at all necessary. This was not a love story, and unfortunately, cheating on one’s wife is far too common a theme for that to be relevant in terms of developing Oppenheimer as a man whose ego eclipses his morals. Speaking of which, I would have far preferred Nolan dive deeper into Oppenheimer’s own inner turmoil, than make the entire third act about the “big bad government taking away this poor man’s security clearance.” The emotional relationship between Opp and Strauss needed to be worlds more developed for me to care about that betrayal. It was also kind of offensive that so much weight was given to the “we could accidentally destroy the world” possibility, when the two bombs the U.S. ended up dropping (killing 200,000 people) were conceivably, just as horrific?
The best parts of this film were Opp’s guilty visions of screaming, burning, people, and the test bomb sequence where, two hours in, our ears finally got a moment of peace. Not awful, but not nearly as good as it could have been, I’m sorry to declare Oppenheimer as just the latest in a string of films that prioritize their own Nolan-ness over anything else.
Happy Saturday,
Would love to hear your thoughts,
Jordan :)