Although Oppenheimer and Maestro head into the Academy Awards ceremony with 20 nominations between them, neither can be defined as typical Oscar bait. Instead of unimaginative biopics with corny uplifting messages, these 2023 movies make the most of the artistic medium with candid interpretations of complex men.
Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein were liberal east coasters of Jewish descent who graduated from Harvard. After moving on to other universities, they gained international acclaim for making milestone advances in their respective fields. Both enjoyed teaching, smoking, and having extramarital affairs (Robert with women, Lenny with men). Bernstein advocated against nuclear armament, while Oppenheimer was dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb.”
Maestro actor/producer Bradley Cooper may be a budding director/screenwriter but his penchant for stylistic filmmaking matches that of Oppenheimer’s seasoned producer/director/screenwriter Christopher Nolan. In addition to painstakingly re-creating the mid-20th century with impressive sets and period costumes, the aesthetic conscious Oscar nominees enhance the narratives of their films with both color and black-and-white imagery.
For Cooper and Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Matthew Libatique, it’s a way to break up the idyllic first part of Bernstein’s life in the 1940s from the consequences of the 1970s and ’80s. Nolan and this year’s predicted cinematography winner Hoyte van Hoytema use monochrome stock to separate the documented hearing scenes from Oppenheimer’s daily reality.
Based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” (2005), Nolan’s historic epic quickly covers a lot of ground. The script flits from the titular scientist’s days at the University of Göttingen in 1926 to his direction of 1942’s Manhattan Project and eventual security clearance hearing in 1954. Unlike the accessible Hidden Figures (2016) which dedicated time to detail its NASA equations, this film has Luis Alvarez (Alex Wolff) splitting the atom off screen.
The swift-moving screenplay doesn’t linger on the casualties from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Pueblo and Hispano communities of Los Alamos affected by radiation from the Trinity nuclear bomb test, or the displacement of the Umatilla, Yakama and Nez Perce tribes along the Columbia River in Hanford. These stories are for another movie.
This movie begins when Danish physicist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) asks Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) if he can hear the music. Speaking for the audience, the answer is yes. In several scenes that’s about all one can hear since the unrelenting score by composer Ludwig Göransson is more distracting than editor Jennifer Lame’s superfluous intercuts. Nevertheless, both are bound to receive Academy Awards for their work.
Göransson’s previous Oscar-winning score was well-suited for the superhero movie Black Panther (2018), but it’s too overbearing here. During the three-hour biopic, there are few moments allowed to breathe without being hammered by intrusive music. Not since John Williams’s contribution to War Horse (2011) has a composer promoted the closed caption and mute options more.
Fortunately, at the center of the drama is an Oscar-worthy Murphy whose chameleon-like portrayal is nothing short of magnificent. While Cooper’s depiction of Bernstein teeters near vanity project status with external prosthetics and a nose plug to generate a nasally accent, Murphy’s embodiment of Oppenheimer is masterfully projected from the inside out.
Overall, Nolan gets fine performances from his star-studded ensemble cast. However, Matt Damon’s portrayal of Gen. Leslie Groves sometimes feels like it belongs in an action movie, while Best Supporting Actor fave Robert Downey Jr. seems like he’s channeling Kevin Spacey instead of Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss.
As Communist/biologist/botanist Katherine Oppenheimer, Supporting Actress nominee Emily Blunt makes the most of her underwritten part. The same can be said for Florence Pugh who plays Communist/psychiatrist Jean Tatlock sans top. Needless to say, Nolan is not known for writing nuanced roles for women.
Cooper, on the other hand, gives great care (and screen time) to his leading lady, Best Actress nominee Carey Mulligan. It pays off with an ethereal performance but comes at the cost of an overly-long second act. Even though the biopic cleverly uses Bernstein’s show tunes to underscore plot points and shows him conducting Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, it’s been faulted for prioritizing the sacrifices of Lenny’s fateful wife over her husband’s career achievements.
Of course, these criticisms rest on unrealized expectations. Such complaints wouldn’t be raised if the movie was titled Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein instead. Had it done so, the score-dominated Oppenheimer could go by Maestro.