We saw Oppenheimer at the pictures yesterday. Initially I thought I might not make it through as there was a bit too much pretentious imagery like a parody of a Brian Cox physics documentary, but it redeemed itself fairly quickly and I thought it an excellent film. Non-linear narrative interspersing his early life as an up-and-coming genius physicist, his work with General Groves (Matt Damon) in the Manhattan project, his dalliance / fellow travelling with communists, and later resulting investigations, and his troubled conscience. Many of the other famous physicists have an appearance: nice almost cameo from Tom Conti as Einstein, a brilliant performance from Robert Downey Jnr as Senator / Admiral Strauss, various other famous physicists i including Hans Bethe, Teller, Ken Brannagh as Neils Bohr, Lawrence (inventor of the cyclitron), Heisenberg, Alvarez, even Kurt Godel all appear. Emily Blunt is Mrs O, and Florence Pugh as his on-off lover, both excellent. Not too much narrative or exposition, but clever storytelling - eg there's a lovely scene establishing how insanely bright he is when he first meets (New Yorker) Raabi in the Netherlands where Oppie is giving a lecture. Raabi offers to translate for the guy next to him; Oppie gives his lecture in quantum physics in Dutch - he's been there six weeks so thought he might as well learn the language! Anyhow, it's far more than a mere documentary
One lovely Easter Egg for us geeks, at a party, and again later an un-named physicist is seen playing the bongos and watches the Trinity test through a car windscreen rather than welding goggles. This is Richard Feynman, who later went on to with the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics. The "windscreen" incident is in one of Feynman's book of anecdotes; he's done a calculation and worked out it's safe.
I have some general knowledge of these events and tona degree, the physics and nothing jumped out as being wrong. This is unusual for me for this sort of film
Overall a solid 8/10.
We also watched "Good Vibrations" on BBC - an account of Terri Hooley, a DJ, record shop proprietor and impresario who is a central figure in Belfast's punk rock scene in the 70s. This is a near perfect masterpiece of a film. Fantastic acting from Richard Dormer as Hooley and also a superb Jodie Whitaker as his wife, ably supported by an excellent cast, including a host of presumably local non-actors as the various punk rockers. This is an astonishingly good film, with perfect cast, superb craftsmanship conjuring up a time and a place, it likely cost a tiny fraction of Oppie's budget.
Not far off a10/10 perfect film
