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Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is one of the filmmaker’s biggest successes. The movie is a box office hit, despite it getting stiff competition from Barbie. And the film is already being considered a strong contender in this year’s awards races. It seems everybody loves the film, and that includes the family of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The title character’s grandson loves the film, though he admits he could have done without one controversial scene.
It has to be a bit strange to be watching a biopic that includes your grandfather as its main character. Such was the case for Charles Oppenheimer, grandson of the character played by Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan’s new movie. The grandson tells Time that he actually met with Christopher Nolan on the set of the movie. But he was bracing himself for not liking the film, if for no other reason than he knew he would take it personally. Although in the end it seems he mostly liked the movie. He explained…
I was bracing myself for not feeling great about it, even though I talked to Chris Nolan and was very impressed by him. I saw him work on the set with an amazing intensity when I visited once or twice, and we had a great conversation. But I didn’t know, am I going to love it? Am I going to hate it? I often have that reaction to biographies and pundits when they talk about my grandfather. I feel like they’re missing something. And sometimes it really feels personal. Like when somebody wants to start a fight with you on the schoolyard, they’ll talk about your family member. But during the movie, I found myself accepting and liking it. I thought it told a compelling story and I could just take it as art that was really engaging. I was really happy to have that reaction. I didn’t expect it.
Of course, in a three-hour film that you know you’re going to take personally, there are going to be parts that you don’t like as much as others. For Charles Oppenheimer, there was one scene that he particularly didn’t care for. Early in the film is a scene where Oppenheimer poisons an apple in an apparent attempt to kill one of his teachers. He ultimately has regrets and prevents anything from happening, but the issue for Oppenheimer the younger is that there is significant doubt the incident ever happened. He continued…
The part I like the least is this poison apple reference, which was a problem in American Prometheus. If you read American Prometheus carefully enough, the authors say, ‘We don’t really know if it happened.’ There’s no record of him trying to kill somebody. That’s a really serious accusation and it’s historical revision. There’s not a single enemy or friend of Robert Oppenheimer who heard that during his life and considered it to be true. American Prometheus got it from some references talking about a spring break trip, and all the original reporters of that story—there was only two maybe three—reported that they didn’t know what Robert Oppenheimer was talking about. Unfortunately, American Prometheus summarizes that as Robert Oppenheimer tried to kill his teacher and then they [acknowledge that] maybe there’s this doubt.
Certainly, the moment doesn’t necessarily paint J. Robert Oppenheimer in the best light, and nobody wants to see their family member that way. Oppenheimer is already a controversial figure for so many reasons. But as Charles Oppenheimer says, it’s far from confirmed that the event actually happened. For that reason the grandson says that if it had been up to him, he would not have included the scene at all, but he ultimately defers to the expert, saying…
I definitely would have removed the apple thing. But I can’t imagine myself giving advice about movie stuff to Nolan. He’s an expert, he’s the artist, and he’s a genius in this area.
All movies based on true stories distort reality in one way or another. Even with the potentially questionable scene, it appears that at least one member of J. Robert Oppenehimer’s family handled its subject matter well. Audiences certainly seem to agree based on the movie’s box office. The only question remaining is how the various awards will respond to Christopher Nolan and Oppenheimer.