'Oppenheimer' Trailer: Christopher Nolan Goes All Mood Piece With His Most Conflicted Hero Yet

By Alberto Cox Délano | Film | December 19, 2022 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | Film | December 19, 2022 |

Two things are true in this world: People who have their own stupid version of “There are X things that are true in this world” and Christopher Nolan loving conflicted male heroes that will still carry on doing the thing that makes them conflicted because … I don’t know, because doing is easier than doubt.

It’s no wonder that, for his first ever movie based on historical characters, he chose the single Most Conflicted Man in History, who by that same measure could qualify as the Most Important Man in History, because he brought forth an invention that could actually end Human History. So, basically he and Jesus. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the J-Man himself, two men whose wanderings through a desertic region changed humanity forever, although fewer people have been killed in Oppenheimer’s name so far.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the first full-trailer for Oppenheimer (the biopic) is a Mood Piece, in which a somber Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, finally becoming a Nolan main-main after always being a side-side) waxes about the implications of this discovery and Why We Might Just Need To Test It So They Can See Its Power. His voiceover is accompanied by tense fragments from the film, interspersed with shots of Earth, Wind, and Lots of Fire (plus a bit of water dripping down a window), and what looks like a beautiful simulation of atoms going PUFF! As expected for any trailer for Nolan’s movies, it’s captivating, spectacular, powered by a booming score (once again provided by Ludwig Göransson) and you can see two or three women in the background.

Benefit of the doubt, if this trailer reflects the actual movie and Oppenheimer is a Mood Poem and meditation on nuclear weapons and the moral limits of science, then I’ll tone down my snark. Nolan did show a lot of narrative restraint when making Dunkirk, his previous historical epic. I just hope that he finally takes a clearer stance on the issues he himself puts onto the table.

Oppenheimer premieres on July 21st.