UPDATED: Raves from Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri, The L.A. Times’ Joshua Rothkopf, The Times’ Jonathan Dean, Associated Press’ Lindsay Bahr Total Film’s Matt Maytum, Daily Telegraph’s Robbie Collin, Variety’s Simon Thompson The Playlist’s Gregory Ellwood, MTV’s Josh Horowitz CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connoll and Collider’s Steven Weintraub.
The main actor being singled out for Oscar-worthy work isn’t even Cillian Murphy, although he’s getting some very good ink, no, it’s Robert Downey Jr. In “Oppenheimer” he plays Lewis Strauss, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and the chief antagonist of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
French critics are mostly positive, but some of their reactions seem to be complaining about the final hour which “implodes,” according to them. You can find those tweets (and translate them) here, here and here.
EARLIER: The Twitter feed Christopher Nolan Art & Updates has posted the reaction of a French critic who saw “Oppenheimer” this morning and sent over their review. Here it is:
“Oppenheimer” is Nolan's most dense film. Lots of dialogue, characters and timelines (like “Dunkirk”). A second viewing will be essential to understand everything.”
“Formally, the film is perfect. Impeccably directed, photographed and edited. But the real highlight is Ludwig Göransson's soundtrack, which brilliantly mixes orchestral and electronic music. It's the best soundtrack of the year and the richest in a Nolan film.”
“The film looks like something out of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The R-rated classification is completely unjustified, there are no shocking images and It's not a horror film at all.”
“The film is never boring at 3 hours, but the last hour may disappoint some people. Watching the film, you get a strong feeling that Nolan was inspired by “Lawrence of Arabia”, “JFK” and “First Man”.
“It's not a masterpiece, there are a few flaws. The female characters suffer from a lack of development. Florence Pugh's character, in particular, is not present enough. Overall, the film lacks emotion.”
The entire cast is great, according to this viewer, especially Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Benny Safdie and Robert Downey Jr, but also notice how this person doesn’t mention Blunt or Pugh — side characters, yes, but this could continue the narrative that Nolan doesn’t have strong enough roles for women in his films.
This morning, I had posted a reaction from someone who was at the Paris screening, but this same person was uncomfortable with it being published and told me to take it down. They did say they like it a lot, adding that it’s long and dense, feeling like a bunch of films crammed into three hours, but that it still very much feels like a Christopher Nolan movie.
I wouldn't call this film great — it stops short of that because of how neatly it resolves itself — but I'll give Rock his due here: this is much better than his previous directorial effort, "Top Five."