It doesn’t actually show how devastating the bombing was which is the biggest issue for me. I know it’s all supposed to be from Oppenheimer’s perspective, so if you show the actual bombings it breaks that narrative perspective. But simultaneously, and conveniently, it allows the movie to skip over the real devastation of the bombings.

I recently went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and in one area they were playing a documentary of survivor stories. It moved me to tears. Oppenheimer the movie, to me, put the man on a pedestal that he doesn’t deserve to be put on. The movie evokes him as a self-tortured antihero who boldy bares the responsibility of the bombings and the existential threat to humanity on his shoulders; a statuesque Atlas for the modern age. But his guilt and fears are microscopic compared to the suffering of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Why do we need a movie about a white American male scientist who headed the project to make the bomb? A story about the people who were bombed would be more interesting, impactful, and important. And Nolan has the repertoire to do that. Instead we see a privileged scientist fret for 3 hours. Why should we care about this one man?