When director Christopher Nolan’s next project was announced, a biopic of the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the news received a mixed reaction. Choosing the theoretical physicist as his next subject matter was a natural step for the filmmaker who has long been fascinated with science (his beautiful odyssey Interstellar) and has tackled historical pieces before (the powerful Dunkirk). In fact, Oppenheimer himself is even mentioned in the auteur’s previous work Tenet, with star Robert Pattinson then gifting Nolan a book of the physicist’s speeches as a wrap present, further inspiring him.
However, it was the choice of the word ‘biopic’ in these news articles that led to some perplexity. This is Christopher Nolan that we are talking about, a filmmaker who never plays it straight and continually pushes cinematic storytelling to new, previously unexplored heights. His heist movie Inception was set in the world of dreams, his action spectacle Tenet saw the present coming under attack from the future, his Dark Knight superhero trilogy is a masterfully grounded crime saga, whilst murder mystery Memento featured a protagonist with anterograde amnesia. There was just no way that Oppenheimer would be a straightforward biopic.
