THERE ARE MOMENTS when the world pivots and nothing will ever be the same again. July 16, 1945, is one such time. Early that morning in the bleak desert of New Mexico, a brilliant explosion heralded the dawn of a new age of history—the atomic age. Within weeks, the United States dropped two atomic weapons on Japan— “Little Boy” on Hiroshima and “Fat Man” on Nagasaki—bringing an end to World War II and leaving the world grappling with the question of how to control these new weapons.
The manJ. Robert Oppenheimer (a wonderful performance by Irish actor Cillian Murphy) was the American physicist charged with overseeing the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the bomb amid fears that Germany will beat the U.S. to it. The three-hour film zigs and zags back and forth in time (and from color to black-and-white) as it studies Oppenheimer the way a jeweler looks at a diamond—turning it in the light to study each facet. At times brilliant and arrogant, charismatic and offputting, Oppenheimer is a man who seems seduced by his own intelligence. “Brilliance makes up for a lot,” he says.
