Thread by @Casillic

Wow! The Oppenheimer movie was much better than I expected!
Acting was absolutely superb! Cillian Murphy especially exceeded my expectations in his portrayal of Oppenheimer. Hell he even sounded like Oppenheimer. There are of course a few minor deviations from historical facts 1/

The 3 hours seemed to fly by with the amount of material covered all but briefly within the scope of the film. Beginning with Oppie as a grad student struggling in the laboratory then ultimately pivoting towards and rising to prominence on the theoretical side of physics. 2/

The CP-1 scene supposedly is sometime well after the initial criticality and sustained chain reaction experiment of the pile. Again, just a brief glimpse of the pile and the plot quickly transitions to another scene. Pile looked great with Enrico Fermi & Leo Szilard being there

Portrayal of Groves was okay. He’s not General when he 1st meets Oppie? Also, had him traveling w/ Oppenheimer recruiting scientists to program. He is always traveling in uniform. My understanding was Gen. Groves would wear civilian clothes as much as possible to avoid attention

Also, thought they had Groves using expletives in scene or two. Groves was demanding and ruthless but don’t think he use profanity. His father was a Chaplain and he had other ways of demeaning someone. I might have imagined the curse words though. Not sure it all happens so fast!

Trinity Test scene was good! Think but not exactly sure big red button was an abort button? Was again very fast paced scene and dialogue. The delay between detonation and blast wave was a little longer than in reality. The scene wasn’t overly done and appropriate for the film

They don’t really show dropping of atomic bomb on Japan. News is broken to Oppie via Truman’s radio announcement. Wasn’t impressed w/ how they conveyed death and destruction of the Japanese through a weird scene with Oppie visualizing bits and pieces in his mind during speech.

There are few weird provocative sex scenes. There is imagined sex scene during clearance hearing. They have Oppie siting there testifying naked & Jean Tatlock appears naked with them having sex in chair, all while Oppie publicly admits their affair in front of committee & wife

Film finishes w/ parallel portrayal of Oppie losing his Clearance and Strauss being denied appointment. These two event scenes are interleaved but the events occur years apart. Movie concludes with implied stark reality w/ risk of nuclear annihilation still destroying the world

A few more tidbits from the movie: they portrayed Boris Pash to be somewhat of a manacle and ruthless security officer. Even had Groves implying Pash wanted to torture / murder suspected people. Not sure of how founded these innuendos really were?

After night of reflection I must add everything is covered so briefly & scenes are somewhat confusing due to amount & time constraint. I’m still trying to process. E.g., during Jean Tatlock chaotic suicide scene Thought I briefly saw gloved hand behind her? Anyone else see that??

Another scene of question took place after Groves confronted Oppie and Condon on unauthorized travel. Condon quits projects & leaves. Oppie asks if he is risk & Groves character jokes he will have him killed. Then clarified it is only joke and that Condon will not talk & not risk

In that same scene Oppie later confronts Groves that one reason he was picked to lead scientific project was because of his checkered past. The skeletons in his closet and that gave Groves leverage over him that he could use it against him.

My Conclusion: Absolutely fantastic film but overwhelming in amount covered & overlapping scenes. Only equivalent experience is after witnessing traumatic event. It all happens so fast you can’t process it & can’t take notes. But slowly glimpses of the details comes back to you!