I completely understand the love of Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER. It is a quite good film, certainly one of Nolan's best. However the main reason I think the film is getting the love it has was the dual forks of t's weird connection to BARBIE (Barbenheimer) and the fact that it is one of the flashiest most over edited films of the year. I mean when was the last time that you saw a serious drama put together in such a way as to mirror a Marvel movie.
Seriously.
What I find over edited is not the structure of the film, the multiple time frames, jumping through Oppenheimer's life is absolutely fine. The problem is the film is constantly in motion. There seems to be constant camera motion. If there isn't motion then there is a steady stream of inserted images. Do they all need to be there? Not really. And while the motion and the images don't interfere with the story, after a while they become a distraction. An hour in I realized that I was watching Nolan's craft more than I was watching the film. How was he putting the sequences together was more important than the story. I would argue that several times through the film the craft and the motion diminished the emotion of sequences. I say this because once or twice I was moved to tears that were instantly cut off by the "oh cool edit".
The other huge problem with the film was the soundtrack. It never f-ing stops. I swear the music is literally wall to wall punching up every frame of the film whether it needs it or not.
The sound track is so aggressive that one gentleman stopped me when I was returning to my seat from a quick bathroom break to ask me if it was supposed to be like this, and after the film a couple sitting in front of me asked me about why the film was mixed like this, since the music frequently drowned out the dialog. I didn't know and speculated it might be the theater, however they said they go to that theater and this was the first time they ever had this problem.
And while the time jumping narrative structure isn't really a problem, I am slightly bothered by how some of it played out. What bothered me was that since I know Oppenheimer's story there were times when I could feel Nolan setting things up so that there would be a "gasp" from the audience in the later part of the film. Things were hidden for effect not for story telling necessity.
But then Nolan's script is wildly uneven. As I said things are hidden for dramatic effect, but there is a bigger problem in that way too many characters are ghosts on screen. Many are there fleetingly. Coming off worst of all is Edward Teller, who love the man or hate him, seems to exist in the film only for exposition. Other characters seem kind of fleshed out, and while they are important to the plot, aren't given enough to full register as a character.
It's a shame since the cast is frequently stellar, with Robert Downey almost certain to win an Oscar, Matt Damon actually disappearing into a role for the first time in years and Cillian Murphy just being his usual wonderful self. Other actors seem to have been brought in because the script is so weak with characters that Nolan had to give us Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti, Emily Blunt and others so we connect a character to a famous face.
Despite all my bitching, I genuinely like the film. It's the first of Nolan's films I've seen in theater BATMAN BEGINS where I didn't feel I wasted my money (or at least not the part that wasn't the extra cost for IMAX). It's also the first film since BEGINS that I actually want to see it again.
Is it the best film of 2023? Oh hell no. Technically it's an achievement worthy of awards, but as a film unto itself, it's quite good and worth a bucket of popcorn, but not much beyond that. Frankly had it not been over hyped, and tied to BARBIE where it could win fanboy audiences because the filmmaking is the same as an MCU film but "important", it probably would have gotten lost.
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