Christopher Nolan’s latest film “Oppenheimer”, which was finally released in South Korean yesterday, is overwhelming to say the least. If you do not have much knowledge about its real-life hero’s life and career, you may get confused more than once as it busily and briskly juggles its multiple storylines and numerous figures around its real-life hero from the beginning to the end, but you will be also captivated by its sheer cinematic craft fueled by Nolan’s undeniably intense artistic vision and talent during its 3-hour running time.

Nolan’s adapted screenplay, which is based on Pulitzer-winning biography book “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, shuffles among three main narratives for looking into the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), who has been known as “Father of the Atomic Bomb”. On one side, we see Oppenheimer enduring the security hearing by the Atomic Energy Committee (AEC) in 1953 due to being associated with some questionable left-wing figures. On the other hand, we see Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), the chief orchestrator of Oppenheimer’s eventual humiliating downfall in public, going through Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce several years later. Between these two contrasting main narratives, the movie vividly illustrates Oppenheimer’s dramatic rise and fall during the 1920-50s step by step.

Although he was not so promising mainly due to his clumsy handing of laboratory experiments, Oppenheimer was a troubled but brilliant student passionately drawn to the exciting academic possibilities of studying quantum mechanics, and he happened to be at the right time and the right place. After meeting Danish Nobel-winner physicist Nelis Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) while having some hard time in England, he immediately moved to Germany for studying under many pioneers in his academic field during the 1920-30s, and he certainly became more excited and passionate about his ongoing study.

However, not long after he returned to US for teaching quantum mechanics in University of California, Berkeley, things got quite serious for him and many others around the world, and then the World War II eventually began in 1939. Before the war, Oppenheimer and his colleagues learned about the amazing but disturbing discovery on nuclear fission in Germany, and, as the war was continued, they and many other physicists in US including Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) naturally came to worry about one dreadful possibility: what if Hitler got the powerful weapon based on that awesome scientific discovery first?

Eventually, the US government commenced the Manhattan Project, and Oppenheimer was subsequently selected as the director of this ambitious military project. When General Leslie Groves Jr. (Matt Damon) approaches to him in private, he is surely well aware of what General Groves wants, and General Groves knows quite well about Oppenheimer’s questionable association with some suspicious left-wing figures such as his longtime mistress Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), though he does not care much because 1) Oppenheimer is on the top of his candidate list and 2) he sees as Oppenheimer’s political vulnerability as a little leverage to be used later for his advantage.

Under Oppenheimer’s confident guidance and leadership, the Manhattan Project gets accelerated further thanks to many different scientists ranging from Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz) to Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), and their massive joint efforts finally culminate to that historical atomic bomb test in July 1945. As many of you know, there has been lots of hoopla about how Nolan and his crew members made this terrifying but captivating moment without using much CGI, and I can only tell you that their final result is worthwhile to watch on big theater screen.

Nevertheless, the movie does not lose the human dimensions of the story even at that point, and it keeps us focused on that via its superlative concoction of visual and sound. While Nolan’s adapted screenplay sometimes feels a bit too talky, the movie rapidly but succinctly moves around its multiple narrative lines thanks to the precise and efficient editing by Jennifer Lane, and its pulsating narrative momentum is further accentuated by the deliberately overpowering score by Ludwig Göransson. Above all, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s camera often focuses closely on the faces of the performers in the film, who all did a marvelous job in their understated ensemble acting as reminding me of what Ingmar Bergman once said: “For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.”

As the distant but undeniably compelling human center of the film, Cillian Murphy, who already collaborated with Nolan no less than five times, diligently holds the center via his subdued but intense presence, and he is particularly terrific as Oppenheimer is trembled a lot by the growing guilt and regret from his involvement in the development of the atomic bomb later in the story. In addition, Nolan assembles many various notable performers around Murphy. While Robert Downey Jr. is a definite standout as Oppenheimer’s petty and spiteful political enemy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Rami Malek, Dane DeHaan, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, Jason Clarke, Macon Blair, Matthew Modine, Gary Oldman, Alex Wolff, Casey Affleck, Jack Quaid, Gustaf Skarsgård, Matthias Schweighöfer, David Dastmalchian, Tony Goldwyn, Olivia Thirlby, James Remar, and Emily Bunt come and go as required, and Blunt and Pugh manage to bring some life and personality to their respective crucial but rather underwritten female supporting roles.

On the whole, “Oppenheimer” shows Nolan back in his element after the relative disappointment of “Tenet” (2020), which left me rather cold due to its very murky time travel plot despite some stunning visual moments to admire. Although this is your typical Nolan flick in many ways, it is one of his better works nonetheless, and it is surely one of the highlights of this summer season.