'Oppenheimer:' A Breathtaking Dramatic Detonation

Bart and I just saw Oppenheimer, a staccato film composed of time-hopping vignettes that nevertheless maintains an absolutely clear narrative line. 

This is really an intellectual history, but exactly the reverse of the kind of dry didacticism that phrase suggests. Director Christopher Nolan covers the ethical, political and social implications of the creation of nuclear weapons, focused through the lens of a handful of top actors at the top of their game. 

Against the backdrop of a threat to human civilization that has never really diminished, Nolan even points us toward an ending that’s a mystery and a solution as satisfying as anything that Hercule Poirot ever showed us.

This is a movie like Chinatown, like Sunset Boulevard and a few others — a film that will live on and on.