This was a meaningful film for me for two reasons.

• I was fascinated by the titular figure at the age of 13
• I have been emotionally scarred by the very concept of nuclear weapons, courtesy of films such as Obon and BBC’s Hiroshima documentary

So seeing this movie was important to me, and it hit me hard.

There’s something very wholesome about crying alone in a dark theater. Theaters give us the opportunity to pretend we’re enjoying films with other people despite the fact that even cuddled up on the couch with a lover we are still having a profoundly solitary experience when we watch movies. Not having a public venue of sentiment will perhaps prove our greatest loss when theaters completely capitulate to streaming.

The writing was wonderful, with a strong showing of metaphorical dialogue and leaving conclusions unstated. The sound design during some scenes was devastating. The subversion of cacophony by silence and vice versa at key points in the film produced a disturbing sense of intimacy. The Trinity test, when it appears in any dramatic film, is going to be a measure of the work, like an actor’s performance as Macbeth will be the play’s. After my long bike ride home, the expanse created within me by this scene still seems so boundless, so dark, and haunted by the dead Oppenheimer’s achievement wrought.