Oppenheimer

After having read the Oppenheimer biography from Abraham Pais I felt sufficiently prepared to go and watch the movie. I went to see it with my wife in a week that both kids were not at home. It was a bit of a last minute decision during an evening in the week. Arriving at the cinema it was immediately obvious we were not alone, almost no parking space and a short walk to the theatre while being already late. Luckily we had already booked our numbered seats and downloaded our tickets on our phone so we could go straight the movie without having to stand in some queue. The theatre was quite full and to my surprise there was a lot of youth (teenagers and early twenties). Having read the book helped filling some gaps that were inevitable even in this 3 hour long movie. My wife was happy to watch the movie together as she could ask every now and then which physicist was introduced into the story. In reviews it was recommended to go and watch the movie in a theatre and it is true that it is visually quite spectacular at times and the music is also absorbing. Comparing the book to the movie it is evident that the movie cannot really capture a person in a few hours. But I still liked the movie as it was a real life drama. With Oppenheimer first rising to fame as a leading theoretical physicist, then as the director of the Manhattan project succesfully developing the first atomic bomb becoming a world famous public figure and to end in disgrace after losing his security clearance in a revengeful hearing. The movie brings across the emotional impact of the hearing on Oppenheimer very well but compared to the book it is not as able to highlight all the double crossing ways how the government stacked the deck of cards against Oppenheimer. But don’t let that stop you watching the movie. It is a well acted emotionally and visually absorbing drama based on real people and facts that impact our lives still today. I really liked Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife and Robert Downey Jr. was superb as a hateable Lewis Strauss.