Obviously, with a movie like Oppenheimer, there’s going to be criticism for the creation of the atomic bomb. It is Christopher Nolan, after all. What’s shocking is the way in which Nolan delivers the final blow to Oppenheimer himself (played incredibly by Cillian Murphy). Throughout the film, all of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project are first lulled by a sense of discovery, but as the story goes on, we can see as they start to question using what they have brought into the world as a weapon of mass destruction.
David Krumholtz’s Isidor Isaac Rabi says as much. It is why he isn’t working with his friend Oppy in the first place. Using their discoveries to create a weapon isn’t something he wants to do. Others begin to echo that thought when Germany is getting ready to surrender during World War II. The insistence of men like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) is what keeps the project going, and with that come consequences.
Throughout the whole movie, you see Oppenheimer talking to a council about getting his security clearance renewed. The only thing they care about is whether or not he’s a communist, and Oppenheimer constantly tells them no. It gets heated when he’s asked about his moral quandary and when it began to cloud his judgement on projects like the hydrogen bomb and change his views on his work at Los Alamos.
In the world of Oppenheimer as a film, his view shifted almost instantly, which leads to a final moment that leaves you sitting in horrific visions and thoughts what the future could be—as Nolan wanted with this film.
Man is our destruction
Often, during Lewis Strauss’ (Robert Downey Jr.) confirmation hearing for secretary of commerce, he talks with his advisors (played by Alden Ehrenreich and Scott Grimes) about how Oppenheimer turned the scientists against him. He brings up a time when he was trying to get Oppenheimer a job at Princeton. From Strauss’ perspective, we see him tell Oppenheimer that he can introduce him to Albert Einstein. Oppenheimer says it’s okay, that they’re old friends, and the two have a conversation by the water that the audience doesn’t hear until the very last scene of the movie.
When Strauss is inevitably denied his place in the cabinet, he blames Oppenheimer and tells his Senate aide (Ehrenreich) that it all started with Einstein (played by Tom Conti). The aide says to him that they could have been talking about something else entirely and not Strauss at all. In fact, he says that they could have been talking about something “more important” before opening the door to let the press swarm in.
The truth is that Strauss’ aide is right. They were talking about the horrors that their work unleashed on the world. For Einstein, it was about what other scientists did with his work and how it encourage them, unleashing a never-ending changing world of science and discovery. For Oppenheimer, his changing reaction was the realization that his atomic bomb forever changed the world, and not for the better.
Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds
Einstein’s conversation with Oppenheimer is rooted in their own shared history. He points out that when he gave him an award years ago, it was less about Einstein’s achievement and more about what other scientists could do with it. From there, Einstein tells Oppenheimer about his future, the medals he’ll receive and the thanks he’ll get after he is forgiven for his creation. And we, as the audience, see that. We watch as he grows old, receives accolades for his bomb, and is thanked for his work by people who once set out to destroy him in the name of Lewis Strauss.
But we also see an Oppenheimer who understands the weight of what he did—the weight of the atomic bomb on his shoulders. One of the last things he says to Einstein in that moment, that has nothing to do with Strauss and everything to do with the pain and destruction that Oppenheimer released on Japan (whether or not he pushed the button) and the world at large, is about the math equation he brought to him.
A world on fire
Earlier in the film, he brings Einstein the work of Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), which says dropping the bomb could cause a series of reactions that never end, catching the world on fire and destroying it. Einstein and Oppenheimer talk it through, the math is reexamined, and they know that it is a “near zero” chance of happening. In this moment, Oppenheimer realizes that it isn’t near zero. Sure, those bombs dropped didn’t immediately catch the world on fire and destroy it, but the knowledge of what these bombs could do will.
We saw it with the Cold War, we see it with the arms race of today. The world isn’t about peace and existing together. It’s about who has the bigger bomb, something Oppenheimer knew would happen and did warn the government of. Still, the father of the atomic bomb brought death and destruction to the lives of over 200,000 Japan citizens and watched what his “science” could do to the world. That last moment shows the horrors that America is willing to unleash on anyone they deem an opponent, and watching as Oppenheimer realizes his monster’s future is horrifying and a truth many of us have known about the nuclear world we live in.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
