Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” hits cinemas next month, releasing opposite the light and frothy “Barbie” and offering a sharp contrast to that film with a dark and serious three-hour exploration of the famed theoretical physicist.
It turns out the divide between the tone of the two films may be even more polar opposites than first thought as in an interview with Wired recently, Nolan warns viewers his film isn’t some stuffy, dry biopic. Rather he says those who have seen it have walked out in shock:
“Some people leave the movie absolutely devastated. They can’t speak. I mean, there’s an element of fear that’s there in the history and there in the underpinnings. But the love of the characters, the love of the relationships, is as strong as I’ve ever done. It is an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I showed it to a filmmaker recently who said it’s kind of a horror movie. I don’t disagree.”
Cillian Murphy plays the man who led the U.S. military’s Manhattan Project in the race to develop nuclear weapons. The film puts us in his head, where he must wrestle with a range of dilemmas:
“Oppenheimer’s story is all impossible questions. Impossible ethical dilemmas, paradox. There are no easy answers in his story. There are just difficult questions, and that’s what makes the story so compelling. I think we were able to find a lot of things to be optimistic about in the film, genuinely, but there’s this sort of overriding bigger question that hangs over it. It felt essential that there be questions at the end that you leave rattling in people’s brains and prompting discussion.”
The R-rated “Oppenheimer,” shot entirely in IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format, sports a major cast including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Rami Malek, Florence Pugh, Jack Quaid, Olivia Thirlby, Gary Oldman, David Dastmalchian, Alex Wolff, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, Matthew Modine, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Tony Goldwyn, Dane DeHaan and James Remar.
“Oppenheimer” arrives in cinemas on July 21st.
