Oppenheimer

Year of release: 2023. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and Robert Downey Jr.

Bruce Wayne, as imagined by Christopher Nolan in his Dark Knight Trilogy, watches his parents be killed by a Gotham City gangster who turns out to have been hired by his later mentor Ra’s al Ghul. Bruce takes his childhood fear of bats and falling to create a superhero that visits those fears onto Gotham’s criminals. At the height of Bruce’s power, he builds a cellular spy network reminiscent of the Patriot Act to track his most dangerous nemesis, and he then takes the fall for that nemesis’ crimes to preserve peace in Gotham, laying aside his work as the caped crusader with feelings of guilt about whether he did the right thing.

Why I am talking about Nolan’s Batman? Because in the Nolan Cinematic Universe, J. Robert Oppenheimer is nearly indistinguishable from Bruce Wayne. Other than Wayne being a lapsed Episcopalian (commonly assumed knowledge among superhero fans) and Oppenheimer being Jewish. No comment on the casting of Cillian Murphy as a Jew.

I do not mean to sound glib or dismissive, but Oppenheimer, Nolan’s latest sprawling historical epic that plays with time and reckons with the potential end of the world, is essentially Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises rolled into one three-hour film. That’s a factually neutral observation, not a criticism.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is a brilliant theorist who introduces quantum physics to the United States after studying it in Europe, alongside several Nazis. He’s selected to head the Manhattan Project, builds the first atomic bomb, later develops reservations about building more weapons of mass destruction although never expresses regret for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then becomes a fall guy for the communist witch hunts under McCarthyism, all while being wracked by guilt over whether he destroyed or saved the world.

What makes Nolan’s presentation of this story engaging is the liberal cross-cutting from timeline to timeline, punctuating three phases of Oppenheimer’s career with comparisons to the other two. If the movie is too long (and it is by about 30 minutes), it’s never boring even as it becomes a relentless marathon of big ideas told with bigger gestures matched by Ludwig Göransson’s bombastic, swelling score.

As Oppenheimer, Murphy does a great job at capturing the stoic coldness typical of most Nolan protagonists. At their best (Christian Bale in The Prestige and Guy Pearce in Memento), Nolan protagonists are antiheros who meticulously construct their own hell through their obsession with their career or mission combined with their off-putting personalities. Oppenheimer is certainly no exception, burning bridges with authorities and fraternizing with communists, which includes screwing one, both of which combine to make his post-war crucifixion all the more of a foregone conclusion.

I was less interested in the kangaroo court that a political rival sets up to oust Oppenheimer as a petty act of revenge than I was in the film’s presentation of Oppenheimer’s willingness to go along with it over his guilt at starting the Cold War, or so he believes. If Bruce Wayne and Cooper (Interstellar) are Nolan’s most noble flawed protagonists, with Alfred and Leonard (The Prestige and Memento) being the most villainous ones, J. Robert Oppenheimer is somewhere in between. The common link is all these men obsess over something until they lose everything else.

Nolan is not a subtle filmmaker when it comes to political themes and philosophical ideas, as starkly contrasted by his masterful puzzle-making that provides easily missed clues, which build to a jaw dropping reveal. It’s why his best films are his ruthless revenge thrillers and his weakest are attempts at philosophizing and depicting a noble humanism. Oppenheimer has both elements, but it shifts back to the puzzle-making of his earlier films, and the philosophical ideas are less on the nose than they have been in other recent offerings of his.

The puzzle’s reveal and third act twist of Oppenheimer will be no shock to history buffs, but that doesn’t mean Nolan didn’t set them up masterfully. For those who don’t know who the villain is (I didn’t) I won’t spoil it here, but the performance by that actor is superb, and his reveal as evil and his downfall are masterfully handled. The downfall is slightly undermined by an on-the-nose moment when an intern reveals the senator who thwarted him was some kid from Massachusetts who wants to make a name for himself, “Kennedy. John F. Kennedy.”

For all of Oppenheimer’s masterful craftsmanship, it hits its viewers over the head with moments like that way too often. Some of them land the intended punch; some of them don’t. My favorite of such scenes was when Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) is being grilled by Jason Clarke’s unethical lawyer and shows herself to be intellectually his equal if not superior. The most jarring of such scenes involves an interrogation about Oppenheimer’s ongoing affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) as Kitty imagines their naked bodies thrusting in front of her and the entire tribunal for the Atomic Energy Commission. It’s so obviously Nolan’s first explicit sex scene and one of the only scenes in the film not from Oppenheimer’s perspective, that it comes across as more of a clumsy shock than anything else.

Not that the sex scenes in Oppenheimer weren’t necessary for the story. They all contribute to Oppenheimer’s assholery, which is an essential part of a Nolan protagonist, and the first sex scene provides Nolan an opportunity to introduce Oppenheimer’s quote from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds.” It’s another on the nose moment, especially given the line’s repetition when the Trinity test is successful, but for the integration of Oppenheimer’s messy personal life with his equal messy professional and political lives, I thought it worked.

As the theorist who can’t quite connect with the real world, Murphy’s Oppenheimer fits very neatly into the Nolan Cinematic Universe. As he struggles at school with how to relate to a professor, how to manage his affections for various women, how to serve his country, and whether the world should continue building atomic weapons, the gnawing loneliness of yet another genius man pervades the film. A tense, humorous exchange between Oppenheimer and General Groves (a very good Matt Damon) right before the Trinity test highlights that disconnect, as Oppenheimer assume the near zero chances of setting off a chain reaction that annihilates the entire world will appease the general. While we never see the horror of Oppenheimer’s work, Nolan does make it known through descriptions of the Japanese and Korean casualties as well as Murphy’s depiction of Oppenheimer’s breakdowns and imagining of his friends suffering the same fate.

At the center of the film is a tragedy, and rather horrific one at that, as Nolan’s lonely genius reaches out for connections in the most explosive ways possible finding the same hole that forms a link throughout so much of Nolan’s work.

Personal Recommendation: B

Gemmel & Tim

Year of release: 2022. Directed by Michiel Thomas.

There are many things one could say about Michiel Thomas’ documentary Gemmel & Tim. It’s a piece of investigate journalism, it’s an amplification of Black voices, it’s a heartbreaking story of friendships wrecked by drug addiction, it’s a scathing indictment of our political system; it’s a shocking example of our time our justice system worked for queer Black people and not against them. Of all the documentary’s many good qualities, I think the last is the one that strikes me the most.

Toward the end of the film, one of the activists interviewed states that the justice system has finally worked in that a major political donor who killed at least two Black men has been brought to justice. Given the amount of times America’s justice system has explicitly targeted minorities, imprisoned Black people for minor drug offences, and allowed white criminals to get away scot-free, one could be forgiven for thinking our “justice” system was designed to function that way. Gemmel & Tim highlights one hard-fought time when it truly served “liberty and justice for all,” and not just the wealthy elite.

The wealthy elite in Gemmel & Tim is Ed Buck, a republican donor in the ‘80s, who switched parties after evangelical Christians partnered with the republican party, and the GOP took a stance against homosexuality. To the extent that Gemmel & Tim focuses on Buck’s sexuality, he seems more of a power-hungry predator looking to exploit gay men, specifically younger, gay, Black men, than someone actually interested in a relationship with men. However, Buck is not the focus of the film.

The film’s focus is the memories of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean, two young Black men who died of drug overdoses in Buck’s West Hollywood apartment. Both cases were dismissed by the police, despite California’s law that anyone who administers drugs that result in a lethal overdose is guilty of murder. One of the most sobering lines is from an interviewee who states that if a Black man had a white man turn up dead in his apartment, he would not be able to assuage the police with a short interview insisting the death was an accident.

However, Buck has been a major donor to the mayor of West Hollywood’s campaigns, so that grants him immunity despite the evidence to the contrary, which the DA dismisses as lacking any proof. In a truly shocking twist of events, which the film withholds until the third act, the way that Buck is arrested and found guilty is an even bigger reversal of usual trends in America’s justice system. It’s a fittingly dramatic climax to an investigation that initially seemed like it would yield no results.

The heart of the film is not the investigation into the criminal conduct of Ed Buck, but the testimonies of Gemmel’s and Tim’s friends who recount stories of their humanity, kindness, and tragedy of the drug addiction that started when they encountered Buck.

As the title implies, the documentary is Gemmel’s and Tim’s tragic story at the hands of a predator who was able to abuse the system. There are also interviews with victims who survived Ed Buck’s sexual and narcotic abuse. The entire documentary is a sobering sum of parts that begins as random anecdotes and crescendos to a climax of justice as an investigation mounts over several years. Justice may be slow, and regardless of how America’s legal system functions, the arc of the universe is one of morality and justice for the oppressed, which this documentary shows in a surprisingly dramatic fashion.

Cuties (aka Mignonnes)

Year of Release: 2020      Directed by Maïmouna Doucouré.  Starring Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas, and Myriam Hamma.

At this point, it is probably impossible to review Cuties without reviewing the controversy that has emerged around it. Unless, of course, there’s been a new outrage for the internet to move on to, but that seems unlikely before I publish this. A large part of the controversy surrounding Cuties is definitely the mob mentality of the internet, but well-meaning people have been caught up in it, so it is worth taking seriously.

I will state upfront: Cuties is a film about cultural sexualization of children, but it depicts that sexualization without engaging in it. There are shocking scenes obviously meant to make the viewer uncomfortable and question their complicity in a culture that presents sex to children too young to understand it, but as the eleven-year-old girls attempt dance moves that they think make them “grown-up,” it’s not sexual at all, just pathetic and tragic.

I must admit that I am surprised by the controversy. While the scenes in Cuties are certainly provocative, they are hardly exploiting the young actresses, and they are unquestionably tamer than scenes in films such as Walkabout, Ratcatcher, Birth, The Squid and the Whale, Little Miss Sunshine, Moonrise Kingdom, and even last year’s Good Boys. While part of me wonders where the controversy was when those films were released, and then that part of me thinks the world has lost its collective mind—which after seven months of a pandemic, it probably has—another part of me acknowledges that those films did not engage the issue of child sexualization as directly as Cuties does. And that grappling with such a serious issue makes the childhood forays into sex much more discomforting to watch.

And we’re not a society that handles discomfort well, if at all. For instance, when an execution goes horrifically wrong, we don’t condemn the death penalty, just its alleged misapplication. Or when the first cut of The Avengers showed too much blood after Loki stabbed someone, it was rated R because the violence was too realistic. In other words, we focus on aesthetics. So it shouldn’t really be a surprise when a film that confronts an upsetting issue head on is accused of doing the thing it condemns. Once again, we ignore context and subtext in favor of surface reactions.

For Amy (Fathia Youssouf), she is caught between two worlds, and she doesn’t understand the context of either. It’s the lack of understanding which the film thoughtfully explores as she comes of age in her own very misguided way. She has her strict Muslim upbringing on one side and the seemingly liberated world of dance on the other. Both of them insist on control over the female body, in both cases through an unhealthy obsession over sex. One side mysteriously veils it as a woman’s only worth, and the other recklessly pursues it. Both are shown to be harmful. For a film drawing such ire from conservatives, this is honestly a fairly conservative film.

Amy’s running back and forth between her new found friends, the titular “Cuties,” and her family has all the impulse of a rebellious eleven-year-old, and while her final decision seemingly comes out of left field, it is consistent with her desire for inclusion and love. That is how sexuality is so often portrayed to children: as something they must do to be liked, and the cultural preying upon that is what is so horrific in the film.

Director Maïmouna Doucouré exercises incredible restraint in filming the girls’ choreography and using their woeful misunderstanding of sex to get what they want. She also brilliantly stages crucial scenes in Amy’s development, such as when Amy hides under her mom’s bed and hears of her father’s second marriage. Once again, it’s something the eleven-year-old does not fully understand, even as she knows it’s wrong. (As I said, this film has a surprisingly conservative attitude toward sexuality.)

My biggest complaint with the film is that there seem to be too many reaction shots missing. However, with the film being solely from Amy’s perspective, the lack of adult perspective shows a child lost between two worlds as she navigates growing up without guidance. More accurately, Amy begins this period of her life with the guidance that her culture offers her as she abandons one frying pan for another. It’s unquestionably uncomfortable, but it’s a mirror to a society that teaches girls their only worth is their sexuality.

 

Personal Recommendation: B-

Rocketman

 Year of release: 2019             Directed by Dexter Fletcher.  Starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Gemma Jones.

An unreliable narrator covers a lot of storytelling sins. If a plot point seems unbelievable or outlandish, but it’s coming from the lips of a narrator who’s extremely dishonest, an addict, or highly depressed, that plot point can and should be taken with a grain of salt. In the case of Rocketman, highlights from Elton John’s life are shaped into a musical fantasy, framed by narration from Elton recounting his life’s story in group therapy.

That life story follows the standard beats of a biopic: talented child becomes famous, hits rock bottom, and then turns his life around. There’s nothing particularly new about this sort of musician biopic, especially compared with last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody, which largely follows the same narrative pattern.

However, when compared with Bohemian Rhapsody, all the ways Rocketman excels become apparent. As Roger Ebert famously said, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Rocketman embraces its musical form and doesn’t shoehorn songs into a clichéd narrative. Instead, it works a narrative around those songs much like Moulin Rouge!, Across the Universe, or Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

After an elaborately and outlandishly costumed Elton Hercules John (Taron Egerton) marches into a recovery group at the film’s beginning, the film flashes back and forth between that meeting and memories of his life, which ultimately led Elton to seek help with his addictions. The first memory receives a song of its own as Elton sings, “I was justified, when I was five…” and then the film transitions into a full-scale production number of “The Bitch Is Back” to set up Reginald Dwight’s (Matthew Illesley and later Kit Connor) childhood and serve as a welcome to the show number.

Much like 2007’s Beatles inspired Across the Universe, the songs are re-orchestrated to fit the context in which they are being sung. For example, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” is used for a bar fight and passage of time as Elton plays there for several years. The overall effect throughout the film is both a moving tribute to Elton John and his music and an effective use of the music to underscore the drama.

The drama draws from mostly well-known episodes in Elton John’s life. His classical piano background, which is apparent in all of his songwriting, and his prodigious ability are the focus of the first section. The latter is obviously exaggerated, but that is in perfect keeping with the tone of the rest of the film. His meeting Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell) by chance and their years long collaboration as well as Elton’s abusive relationship with John Reid (Richard Madden) form most of the film’s narrative. The backstory is a little too thorough, trying to cover too many details, and it slightly bogs down the film’s pacing. This is the type of story where a nonlinear recollection of memories from Elton at rock bottom would probably have made a stronger effect.

However, despite the predictable trajectory of the narrative, the film soars in its presentation of the music. The best musical choice among many great ones is the song that frames the film. Coupled with Elton walking into therapy is an instrumental of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” which returns as an 11 o’clock number at a crucial moment between Bernie and Elton. Since that song is about dreams not turning out as planned and walking away from the razzle dazzle of showbiz, it is a perfect and highly poignant choice, especially when the chords of that song are the first thing we hear in the film.

One song I was truly surprised not to hear was “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” For a film that takes this unflinching a look at the dangers of addiction, there were countless places where it would have been a perfect fit, either as a testament to Bernie’s support through Elton’s substance abuse or in regards to Elton acknowledging his homosexuality and escaping his unhealthy relationships.

As Elton, Taron Egerton does a commendable job singing some rather difficult songs and convincingly portrays the high highs and low lows of Elton’s life through the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Dexter Fletcher, after completing the last couple scenes of Bohemian Rhapsody, shows he does have a good eye for staging musical numbers.

Lee Hall, who collaborated with Elton John on Billy Elliot the Musical, has penned a script that honors his friend and his music while refusing to lionize him or his mistakes. Most beautifully, it shows the power of any great art, in this case Elton John’s music, to transform, inspire, and be a means for both creator and partaker to share in something greater beyond themselves. And for that, I’m exceedingly grateful to have seen this movie too.

 

Personal Recommendation: B+

Mary Queen of Scots

Year of release: 2018              Directed by Josie Rourke.       Starring Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce, James McArdle, Jack Lowden, and David Tennant.

“Better a live rat than a dead lion.” So says a character in one of the best plays and movies about the religious convictions and subsequent conflicts instigated by the English reformation. Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) lives by the conviction “better a dead lion than a live rat.” In 1561, with tensions between Catholics and Protestants still high in Europe, that is a dangerous principle to hold, and for anyone who knows their British history, it is one that cost Mary dearly.

The latest cinematic telling of that history assumes that knowledge, and it opens with brilliant crosscutting between Mary processing to her execution in 1587, Elizabeth I approaching her throne, and then back to Mary’s return to Scotland from France in 1561. The imagery draws a powerful parallel between the two queens, foreshadowing the ensuing conflict with a bookend that suggests their inevitable fates. Unfortunately, it’s the only time in the film such thought is given to the editing, and the rest of the film settles into a fairly rote history lesson, highlighting the main points in the power struggle between England and Scotland, Protestants and Catholics, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart.

That is not to say Mary Queen of Scots is a bad history lesson. With grandiose and austere production design, stylish costumes and makeup, a talented cast, and some beautiful cinematography of the Scottish countryside the whole film remains watchable. However, the script and pacing are too pedestrian for the film as a whole to rise to the level of its parts or themes.

This is a strongly feminist take on Mary Stuart and her desire to unify England and Scotland, which I believe is not unusual for films about her. What is unusual is something that I’ve only seen in one other film, The Girl King from 2015. Both these films about strong female monarchs who are Catholic or wish to become Catholic, which functions a rebellion against their patriarchal Protestant courts, not only link Catholicism with protagonists’ feminism but also with their liberalism and anachronistic pro-LGBTQ beliefs.

As bizarre as this may seem, especially in twenty-first century America, I think there are parallels in that comparison worth exploring. In England and Scotland in the latter half of the sixteenth century, Catholics were a persecuted minority, much the same way LGBTQ people were for nearly all of the twentieth century. If a misogynistic patriarchy is the established norm throughout most of Western history, linking that to the dominant religion of a period film’s setting is not an illogical decision—after all, religion has often been abused to rationalize power struggles. Continuing this dramatic license, if a minority religion is then linked to the ways in which a female protagonist challenges said patriarchy, I think there is a dramaturgical basis for the comparisons made here.

However, I think the ideas themselves are more interesting than the film’s handling of them. That above paragraph is probably more thought than any of the filmmakers gave to those themes, as the driving force behind most dramatic choices seems to be: Mary is a progressive rebel.

The recurring motive throughout the movie is that Mary is too independent, and her taking agency of herself like a man threatens the toxic masculinity of the Scottish and English lords. As a contrast with Mary, Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) defers to her council and allows herself to be parliament’s pawn. In one of the film’s better exchanges, she tells her chief advisor William Cecil (Guy Pearce) that the throne has made her more of a man than anyone else, but she has just embraced the desires of the power-hungry men surrounding her. The woman who acts as an equal with the men is Mary, and she is detested for it.

This power struggle mostly plays out through the determination of the Protestant nobles to prevent England from ever having another Catholic monarch. Overlaying the sixteenth century religious conflict with a contemporary feminist angle creates a parallel between the bigotries of five hundred years ago and those of today, as can be seen in David Tennant’s frothing at the mouth, right-wing fundamentalist portrayal of John Knox.

The one performer who really stands out is Margot Robbie. Her final two scenes walk a perfect balance between Elizabeth’s compassion for her cousin and the role she has embraced in serving her council. It’s probably the best example of the film’s themes of religion and gender roles in a society dominated by men.

I am a huge fan of Ronan, and I firmly believe that she was robbed in losing awards for both Brooklyn and Lady Bird. However, her performance here, while very good, lacks the empathy those other characters had, and as fitting as her austerity is for Mary, it pales next to the range of emotions Robbie achieves in her portrayal of Elizabeth.

As a story of two queens caught between men’s games of political intrigue, the film never quite achieves the urgency and tension it should. Nonetheless, telling this chapter of history solely from their perspectives makes for a thematically fascinating subversion. Since the winners get to write history, the losers of conflicts are often reviled, sometimes rightly and other times not. Mary Queen of Scots was viciously reviled by the English and her subjects during her lifetime while Elizabeth I was beloved. The film’s modern lens invites us to consider the reasons behind that, and it is an idea I appreciated even as I wish the film did more with it.

 

Personal Recommendation: B-

Content advisory: An off-screen rape, a bloody assassination, several consensual sex scenes—one rather violent, non-graphic wartime violence, and fleeting nudity.             MPAA rating: R

Suggested Audience: Adults