From that open ending in The dark knight rises to the dreamy conclusion of Beginning, Christopher Nolan is known for the thought-provoking endings he adds to his powerful films. And the director's latest cinematic epic, oppenheimeris no exception, as star Cillian Murphy recently pointed out in a double interview for Deadline.
Murphy is a veteran of the Nolan Cinematic Universe. Outside of the legendary Michael Caine (who, yes, was curiously absent from that star-studded event), oppenheimer cast), is the actor who has appeared in the most Christopher Nolan films. He knows Nolan's script very well, including those trademark, jaw-dropping endings. But Cillian singled out the final sequence of director J. Robert Oppenheimer's biopic, calling the film's chilling ending “extraordinary” and “genius”:
I love third acts and endings, and when I read the script, that time in Dublin, knowing that's something Chris always pulls off, I remember thinking, 'What a bloody ending.' It's extraordinary. And that's from Chris's imagination. It's not from history, but it's just genius. You can write an amazing script, but you can paint yourself into a corner and the audience will be disappointed if you don't get the fucking ending.
Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen it yet. oppenheimer—which, given the fact that the biographical drama grossed nearly a billion dollars at the box office, seems to be just a few of you—in the film's final scene, the audience finally hears exactly what Murphy's Oppenheimer says to Einstein (played by Tom Conti).
Throughout the film, petite bureaucrat Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr., on track to win the 2024 Oscar for supporting actor for his work here) believes that the meeting between Oppenheimer and Einstein is a slight against him, a insecurity that continues until Strauss works to revoke Oppenheimer's security clearance and make him a pariah in the scientific community.
However, the real topic of their conversation was much less personal and much more disturbingly philosophical, about the life-changing ramifications caused by scientists' decision to detonate the atomic bomb and potentially destroy the entire world.
Those broader philosophical questions about the Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test were paramount to Nolan, who meticulously placed “key changes” throughout the script, culminating in that horrible climax between Oppenheimer and Einstein. The director told Deadline:
While crafting a script, you try to focus on things like, what's the key idea that has to work here? What are the key changes you need that will impact the audience? And in the case of Oppenheimer, he was very clear that the purpose of the script is to go from the highest point of triumph, with Trinity, to the lowest point of the realization of Hiroshima, in the shortest possible time. as possible.
Christopher Nolan's script clearly managed to create those tonal shifts and get the ending absolutely right.oppenheimer is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards (the film is based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin), along with nods to Nolan's direction and Cillian Murphy's performance.
You can revisit Nolan's “great” ending to oppenheimer streaming the biopic with a Peacock subscription.
