Chad Wonderling

In Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” he vividly portrays J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist behind the creation of the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy stars as the American physicist who oversaw the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM. While Murphy did a superb job in his role, other parts of the film left a lot to be desired. For over two hours of the 180-minute screenplay, we are repetitively and un-insightfully taken through McCarthyism themes, which were politically popular for the time that challenge Oppenheimer’s political ideology and his favorability of communism. Surprisingly, there is little about the social, intellectual, and cultural excitement that was generated out of Los Alamos due to the Project. Ultimately, this film is a depiction of human narrowness, exploring such narrowness of the role humans played in the creation of the atomic bomb, political narrowness, the narrowness of the Los Alamos desert, and the narrowness of Oppenheimer himself. The film left me wanting more and even disappointed with what I received.