An illustration of Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer against a red background.
History, Oppenheimer suggests, is made up of agendas and counter-agendas, narratives and counter-narratives, fictions imposed onto a reality where truth has diminishing relevance if it ever mattered at all. Nolan’s films have always had a double-edged relationship with truth, full of noble lies and spiraling self-delusions, their characters manipulating themselves and each other as much as the reality around them.
Oppenheimer, like its namesake J. Robert Oppenheimer, is a noble failure—but I've continued to revisit it in my mind’s eye, wondering if it worked on me or if it was merely evocative—and to what degree “evocativeness” is a measure of quality.