It really impressed me. It avoids simple good and evil narratives. Oppenheimer was an academic in a time when ideas that were mainstream Democrat in 1936 were dangerously suspicious a few years later. Having an adulterous affair with a Communist and being married to an ex-Communist, then getting caught lying about what he reported of those contacts and when eventually bit him. But in the meantime, he led a project that saved millions of lives American and Japanese. The cheap leftist propaganda about the decision are not presented, just a man with misgivings about the results who also that it would lead to a world where full scale warfare would be unimaginable.
Fine acting, good casting of actors who look like the real people (Gen. Groves excellent, President Truman not so good). No preaching about the evils of America. Well worth seeing.
Oh yes, because some of Oppenheimer's problems stem from adultery there are a number of naked breasts.
I'm kind of a Richard Feynman fanboy, so I kept an eye out for his character. It's a very minor role, but the moviemakers found someone (Jack Quaid) who looks to be a dead ringer for 1940s Feynman.
ReplyDeleteI broke up with a woman who coudn't think past "The United States is the only country that actually used an atomic bomb on civilians. Of course, she proudly said that her father named her after Angela Davis, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.
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