From his early student days, through World War II and the 1950s Communist witch-hunts, Nolan's Oppenheimer takes a fairly comprehensive look at the theoretical physicist's personal, professional and political lives embedded in the socio-political context of the times. As Oppenheimer, the reliable Cillian Murphy leads a Nolan film and inhabits the character absolutely and portrays a brilliant, driven but haunted man, and Christopher Nolan's (co-)writing and direction creates a confident and dazzling patchwork of sounds, images and performances that is quite stunning to watch and demands the viewer's full attention throughout. There are many performances that impress, including Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett and notably Robert Downey Jr amongst others. What Nolan creates cleverly is an intelligent and thriller that is also nimble and gripping, housed within a brilliantly-realised biopic. The relentless and exhausting (but fantastic) rapid-fire dialogue and editing gives the film an unstoppable momentum, yet its structure also enables the thoughtful considerations of the ushering in of the nuclear age. There is an obvious reason why Oppenheimer has been cleaning up the major prizes during the awards season, and it is quite simply that film-making does not get much better than Oppenheimer.
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