Movie Review – Oppenheimer

A staggering achievement

‘Oppenheimer’ is nothing like anything which has come to cinema before. To restrict the film as just a biopic is an understatement. Nolan does everything he does to perfection. The template is set right from screen one, through music, shots, timeline etc. It’s the most Nolanisque film, yet it’s the complete opposite too. Through craft he does everything he’s known for in his films and through art he touches the deepest of human emotion. Sorry to spoil it, but the silence at the end of film felt really like the end of it all, end of the world and in so many years of film watching, I’ve never witnessed anything like that in cinema halls before.

Right from screen one, Nolan gets you on hook, first through music and then that ever piercing camera. Together it gives a feel that it’s penetrating inside you. I watched it as a night show in big screen and I couldn’t sleep for a good couple of hours, i could feel my heart still racing. But mind you it’s not a thriller like ‘Interstellar’ or a non-thriller made like a thriller like ‘Dunkirk’. It’s one of the films were all the pieces come together. Post ‘Inception’ it felt like he was doing those back and forth shorts with that tension inducing music of his, for no real reason. But here it just felt apt.

Especially after a disastrous ‘Dunkirk’, a drama film, which was needlessly made a thriller, I had very little hopes for ‘Oppenheimer’ as it was a real story. Meanwhile by trying to prove his mettle, he went overboard in ‘Tenet’ I feel (which I haven’t watched it yet), and incurred the wrath of even people who normally would watch his film just for the entertainment factor.

Nolan has always come out as a guy who’d make you think and that was taken for granted by his fans, who mostly are fan boys, who get under your skin when you watch in A-list theatres like Sathyam or Escape. Just by the looks of it you can identify who are those smart asses who’ve come for his movies. They’d be explaining to one naïve guy or a new girlfriend about the formulas and equations. That herd was there for this film as well, with of course the other “cool guys who kalachify anything English” group. But this film was a slap on the face on everyone. It was a statement by Nolan saying, “don’t you dare reduce me to your level with your cheap antics”. And it was a statement not wanting to prove anything but only to outdo himself and make a truly staggering quality cinema. His march towards excellence.

It’s not necessarily a film where you need to understand everything but it doesn’t put you down like an ‘Inception’ or ‘Interstellar’ where the one who explains you gets an imaginary halo of being the know it all. The film can be enjoyed, no, enjoyed is not the word, it’s too less an emotion. The film can impact you in numerous ways, through moralistic questions, exposing your views, make you numb but more than anything, it gets you astounded by the way it was made.

I watched ‘Capote’ sometime back and thinking of biopics or otherwise, it was one of the truly beautiful movies I’ve ever watched. Not even taking into consideration the story and direction. Just by the shots and the frame, I’ve never felt this poetic in a while. So at the top of my mind, that’s the best biopic I’ve watched. But this film overdoes it. Because it couldn’t be restricted as just a biopic, not just another movie like ‘The Imitation Game’, which of course was lovely for its template. ‘Oppenheimer’ talks to you in much different ways and impacts you multifold with its show.

Recently I had a chance to watch ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’. I say “chance to watch” and not “watched” because it happened. There was something about ‘Rocketry’ which was putting me off. Even though the story was a strong one, it felt forced and the making was bad. While watching ‘Oppenheimer’ it showed, how through a good director, a similar story can be elevated exponentially. Direction is not just about shooting a story. It’s much more than that.

When talking about ‘Oppenheimer’, everyone talks about the bomb and the blast. But it’s not just about that. In fact it’s not at all about that. It’s not a stunt like much latest ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’, it’s the story to it. It’s like an enigma to which we’re going towards. In fact it’s philosophical. The blast was just a metaphor. Of course it’s made well and shocks you but the shock was more due to what had happened rather than how it had happened. You’re not awed by how well it was shot. You’re shocked by what it can do. If that’s not master filmmaking I don’t know what is.

Nolan blends Aronofsky in the form of the leading ladies, Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) and Terrence Malick in the form of bomb (think ‘Tree of Life’). Emily Blunt looked bony, weak but with a heart of a warrior and Florence Pugh, was both enigmatic and sad. She felt like one of those Woody Allen’s Femme Fatale. Nolan has always had great female characters but the Aronofskian way of dealing them was something unexpected.

Coming to Cillian Murphy. In a world of McConaughey’s and Bale’s he doesn’t get noticed enough but its one role which I’m sure Tommy Lee Jones would have been proud of. He almost gets to the level of ‘There Will Be Blood’ but of course ‘Oppenheimer’ is not a film like that where it’s only about him. The makeup and the way he’s worked in his body was done to perfection, without any show off.

This is a once in lifetime film. In fact this phase from ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Mission Impossible’ to ‘Oppenheimer’ could be the greatest one month for any Hollywood fan. But it was more than that for me. I felt like my life has become a complete circle by watching some of my most memorable characters on screen in a span of one month for one last time. It’s a phase where one gets to watch great films and probably, when I look back at old age, this might be the greatest phase of my movie watching. From Archimedes to Albert Einstein, I’ve seen it all. This part of my life, this little part, is called happiness.

Movie Review – Marriage Story

Boredom of Breakup

My biggest expectation out of the first set of lockdown movies was ‘Marriage Story’. So much so that I waited for the right time to watch the movie alone without any disturbance and with clear head space. But to be honest I was underwhelmed with the movie. May be its too classy to emotionally break anyone. Like how you can’t really get high on a movie like ‘Moneyball’ in spite of it being a great movie.

I think for many of the movies in the recent past I’ve compared it with ‘A Separation’. I guess that’s the impact the movie had on me. Again, I had to do the same here. Having watched ‘A Separation’, nothing could match its standard when it comes to a couple in distress. I too was waiting for the movie to either take a funny tone or serious tone at some point of time but except for the scene where they perform the angst against each other in Charlie’s (Adam Driver) new room, there weren’t any scene to get high. That’s the boredom of practicality. So much so that I lost interest in their story. It was like gossiping on an uninteresting story of a neighbor.

Scarlett Johansson for once doesn’t scorch up the screen with her beauty and appears to be a commoner, Nicole. Adam Driver, looked much like Javier Bardem and before watching the movie I was of the opinion, that it was indeed him who had acted in the movie. But Adam Driver does a terrific job too. I was interested in his story rather than hers. Every time he comes out from the break up mood to normal mode was terrific. It was just like a flash. Whereas for Nicole it takes some time to slowly settle in real time.

The single best cinematic scene of the movie was the one where they close the door, apart from the scene where they both voice out the frustration of course. Otherwise the movie looked pretty mundane with its routine characters and situations. All through the situation I was thinking how Woody Allen would have directed the movie. How painful he’d have made the humor and make us all regret.

But here the idea was to show how life is during the breakup and not entirely focus only on the breakup and the aftermath of it. May be that’s why it is titled a ‘Marriage Story’ and not break up story. In spite of watching few originals in OTT off late, this looks like a perfect OTT platform movie. There is absolutely no need for a theatre experience for it, plus the budget looks pretty minimal with hardly any outdoor scenes. Yet the production value looks rich. May be for a subject like this OTT was be a perfect platform.

Just like the entire movie, even the climax doesn’t really explode. It’s striped of emotions. Instead of seeing a close up shot of either Nicole or Charlie, we see a top angle shot where they both separate. What they undergo is something we had to understand and wouldn’t be shown to us directly, just like the whole movie does.