Molly Z

This movie seems to have confused political conniving with actual depth. Nolan had us sit through a 3-hour interrogation with the bomb and people stories interspersed in it. And no, that did not make it profound, or engaging. Great movies find a fine balance between being entertaining and being deep, and this movie hits neither. There is a lot of depth and nuance intrinsically in the subject of inventing nuclear weapon: the paradox between self protection and aggression, the benevolent and malevolent aspects of intellectual prowess, unintended dire consequences of unexamined ambition and aspirations, greed, guilt, self deception, etc etc. Instead, this movie was more like "look, cool scientists, bad politicians and beautiful people in dysfunctional relationships", and then deliver it in a way that is pretentious and confusing. As a researcher, this reminds me of a paper written in deliberately confusing ways just to hide its inability to innovate. Yes, there are some dramatic juxtaposition of contrasting scenes, in classic Nolan style which I loved, but in this case it did not translate to sophistication or emotional impact. Just like how playing bad music really loud does not automatically make it powerful, likewise filming a historic event with expensive IMAX format and atom-bomb-detonating production can just feel meh and underwhelming. In regard to bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I am very disappointed to see the movie regurgitating the narrative of "A lot of people died but it's okay because wE sAVeD mORe LIveS". I guess this has to be repeated many times in order to sound remotely convincing. Likewise, it peddles the other self-deceptive narrative that “A really devastating weapon will ensure lasting peace” - no it didn’t, look at the world today. We have had countless wars and genocides since 1945. It's fortunate that we haven't blown ourselves into extinction, but that is very different from "lasting peace". So overall, I am disappointed at the movie's inability to really introspect. It failed to poke at tender bits of ethics and humanity, and instead opts for filming politicians arguing with each other. Oh and it repeated the line “I have become death, destroyer of the world” for about 5-10 times, as if that could bring in the depth it lacked (no it didn't).