STACK #230 December 2023

MOVIE FEATURE

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A fter all, a three-hour biographical thriller about a theoretical physicist is not exactly sexy fare, despite A-list cast including Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh. But ultimately, in Nolan’s hands, Oppenheimer proved absolutely thrilling. If the director was nervous prior to the film’s release, he’s now thrilled that his team pulled it off, as the box office returns slowly inch toward the US$1 billion mark. “The shocking success of the film has succeeded far beyond our wildest dreams,” he tells us. “I mean, you always have your private hopes for something - but this far exceeded that. As Oppenheimer and Barbie prepared to slay it out at the box office earlier this year, it seemed like an uphill battle for Christopher Nolan’s serious drama to even compete. Words Gill Pringle

“I think what surprised me most - and in retrospect, pleased me the most - is young people coming to the film. And coming more than once, and getting something from it,” he continues. “In fact, when I first started writing the script, one of my teenage sons actually said to me, ‘Dad, no one is that worried about these things. We’re not really interested in that subject’. Privately, I thought that maybe it was a good reason for making the film.” Having grown up in the UK, the subject of nuclear proliferation was never far from Nolan’s student consciousness, so he knew audiences of his own age and older would relate. “My personal frame of reference was in the 1980s, when the US installed cruise missiles at Greenham Common,” he says. “The threat and fear of nuclear war was something we were all talking about then. “So, the big question was: Could that fear connect with young people, and perhaps bring the issue back to the top of mind, in the pop culture sense? And it seems to have done that, and that makes me very happy,” Nolan smiles.

• Oppenheimer is out Nov 22

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