Written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer is one
of the most historically accurate blockbusters ever made — but it still had to gloss over and
omit some extraordinary details. Here's how close it got to the real deal.
Perhaps the most notable character in Oppenheimer that isn't named Oppenheimer is Lewis Strauss,
played by Robert Downey Jr. Upon meeting Strauss, Oppenheimer remarks that he can relate to the fact
that Strauss is a self-made man, as his father was too. The two also briefly commiserate about
anti-Semitism. Otherwise, the film doesn't delve too deeply into Oppenheimer's childhood.
Robert's father Julius was a German Jew who fled to New York City in 1888.
He really did start with nothing, and he turned a job at a textile factory into a
lucrative business empire. The family wasn't religious, as Julius and his
wife Ella sent their children to a progressive institution called the Ethical Culture School.
In the film, Oppenheimer claims that the J. in his name didn't stand for
anything. The biography the film is based on, American Prometheus, explains that it
wasn't common practice for Jewish fathers to name their sons after themselves. However,
Julius added his own name to his son's birth certificate at the last second.
J. Robert Oppenheimer's wealth distinguished him from other Jewish Americans socially, even
though he was generally indifferent about both money and his Jewish heritage. While growing up,
he was an odd child who was bullied by his peers. He skipped grades, was obsessed with
rocks and minerals, and was once violently hazed at summer camp. By his teenage years,
he was already showing signs of both genius and instability. That's a lot of baggage for one man.
"It took me a minute to actually comprehend. And then I realized,
oh, that's a huge responsibility."
While studying at Cambridge University, Oppenheimer poisons his professor's apple
after he's forced to miss the beginning of a lecture and clean up his sloppy lab work.
The real Oppenheimer was notoriously clumsy with his experiments, which was why he ended
up working in theoretical physics. That poisoning was no creative flourish either,
as Oppenheimer did indeed inject his tutor Patrick Blackett's apple
with chemicals — and it caused more of a scandal than what's shown in the movie.
In the film, Oppenheimer wakes up in a panic the following morning and rushes back to
the classroom to find his idol, Niels Bohr, about to take a bite. To prevent a disaster,
he says that he's spotted a wormhole and tosses the apple in the trash. In reality,
Oppenheimer was struggling with more serious mental illness. His questionable perception of
reality led to a diagnosis of dementia praecox, which is a now-outdated term for schizophrenia.
In the real version of the misguided revenge plot, Blackett never ate the apple. Oppenheimer
was neither arrested nor expelled, partly due to conflicting accounts and his father's influence.
The ordeal was seen as a cry for help, and he managed to seek psychiatric care.
Audiences expecting to see a movie about World War II may have been surprised by how
much of Oppenheimer is instead about closed door politics. In particular,
there are the grueling series of hearings in which Oppenheimer's security clearance and
loyalty to America are called into question. The film ultimately remains ambiguous about whether
or not its subject was ever officially a member of the Communist Party, suggesting instead that
he was most likely a leftist FDR supporter who had associations with card carrying communists.
In American Prometheus, Oppenheimer is quoted as claiming that he was so apolitical that he didn't
know about the stock market crash of 1929 until Ernest Lawrence told him six months later — and
he never voted until 1936. His interest in and support of left-wing causes began around
1934 and continued until roughly the time he became involved in war efforts. Oppenheimer
insisted that he never joined the Communist Party, although he did admit in writing —
"I have been a member of just about every Communist Front organization on the West Coast."
Furthermore, several of Oppenheimer's family members,
friends, and acquaintances were active communists at certain points in their lives.
"It feels to me like every single character is significant, because
they were all historical figures of consequence."
In the movie, Oppenheimer says that only a fool or a child would presume to know
what goes on in a relationship. He's talking about his wife Kitty, played by Emily Blunt,
but the sentiment is even more applicable to his romance with Jean Tatlock, as portrayed
by Florence Pugh. Tatlock was studying to become a child psychologist when she
and Oppenheimer met and bonded over their inner demons and left-leaning ideologies.
The film touches on their intense but relatively short-lived relationship, as well as one final
tryst followed by Tatlock committing suicide by drowning herself in a bathtub. The truth is much
more complicated: in the movie, she's annoyed at Oppenheimer's habit of gift-giving, but in
real life, she ended up regretting her constant refusal of flowers and marriage proposals. She
was also rumored to have carried on an affair with her communist friend Mary Ellen Washburn.
"Jean Tatlock was blunt, knew what she wants, but at no point is she ever punished for that."
American Prometheus contends that Tatlock's suicide may not have been a suicide at all.
When her father discovered her body, he burned her letters before calling the
police. It's been theorized that a government official may have had her killed out of fear
that Oppenheimer shared state secrets that she could have passed on to the Russians.
Kitty Oppenheimer's incredible story is barely touched upon in the film. She's
depicted as an unhappy mother and jealous wife with a moderate drinking problem,
but the real Kitty was a more extreme version of the one we see on screen.
The only child of an upper-class German family, Kitty falsely claimed that she was a princess. She
also frequently enrolled in colleges but failed to take any classes. She divorced her first husband
after learning that he was gay and addicted to drugs. Her second husband died in battle,
and then she became pregnant with Oppenheimer's baby while she was married to her third.
Dating married women and cheating on his wife wasn't unusual for Oppenheimer. He
attempted to seduce his secretary at Los Alamos, and letters show that he had a
long-term relationship with Ruth Tolman, the wife of his friend Richard Tolman.
According to American Prometheus, Kitty was resentful of her husband's lovers and his fame. An
alcoholic who got into several car crashes and sustained broken bones from falls,
she favored liquor over food at parties and frequently fell asleep
with lit cigarettes. She may have also suffered from postpartum depression.
"She had this defiance against the system that felt so modern."
The most accurate part of Oppenheimer is likely the section that takes place at Los Alamos,
which lasts from 1942 to 1945. Leslie Groves, as played by Matt Damon,
recruits Oppenheimer to head up the secret army weapons lab. The real Groves and
Oppenheimer had their disagreements, but they respected each other and worked well together.
Groves wanted the scientists to become soldiers and wear uniforms,
but he conceded that they could meet once a week to share ideas for the sake
of progress. Additionally, Isidor Isaac Rabi did indeed decide to consult rather
than move west, while Edward Teller did indeed favor the hydrogen bomb.
The technical specs are more or less historically accurate as well. A cyclotron
was used to accelerate particles, and the theorists did truly fear that they may ignite
the atmosphere. The uranium and plutonium cores were about as big as represented by
the fish bowls filled with marbles. The bomb was referred to as "the gadget" so
as to minimize awareness of its purpose, and the crew was relieved to learn from Niels Bohr that
the Germans took a wrong turn despite the head start that Werner Heisenberg had given them.
But the film doesn't portray how the U.S. considered having Heisenberg assassinated
and poisoning German food supplies. And in the movie, Oppenheimer whispers his famous
quote from the Bhagavad Gita even though he may have only thought it on the day of.
"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
In one key scene, professor Haakon Chevalier, played by Jefferson Hall,
tells Oppenheimer that the academic community has been complaining about Americans refusing to share
intelligence with their allies, including Russia. He mentions that another physicist named George
Eltenton made it known that he could channel such information should anyone want to divulge
their secrets. Oppenheimer says that would be treason, and Chevalier changes the subject.
In real life, Oppenheimer did report Eltenton, but not until some time after Chevalier's visit.
Instead, he concocted a fake story to protect his friend. He admitted the
truth to Leslie Groves eventually, but the fake story came back to haunt him
by undermining his character during his security clearance hearings. In the end,
Chevalier's name came out anyway, and he was blacklisted. After that,
he moved to France to work as a translator. For his part, he maintained that he was
simply alerting Oppenheimer to Eltenton's scheme rather than soliciting nuclear intel.
As the movie hurtles toward its climax,
Oppenheimer and Josh Hartnett's Ernest Lawrence attend a Department of Defense
meeting to discuss whether and where to drop the atomic bombs. Prior to this meeting,
some of the scientists at Los Alamos had begun to discuss the ethics of the weapons.
Oppenheimer assured them that public awareness could be terrifying enough to end all wars.
Behind closed doors, some wonder if a demonstration might be enough,
or if civilians should be warned in advance. The military shoots down these ideas, though,
as they would jeopardize the mission and the safety of the pilots. The group chooses two
targets out of 11 possibilities, with Kyoto being withdrawn from
consideration because Secretary of War Henry Stimson honeymooned there.
These details are all true. Oppenheimer had much less power once the A-bomb had been invented,
and the scientific community had begun to question its necessity. Germany had already surrendered,
and Hitler had killed himself. Japan was likely to surrender in the coming months if they were
permitted to keep their Emperor, although unconditional surrender was preferable.
Oppenheimer defended the decision to drop the bombs throughout his life, although he did tell
President Harry Truman that he felt he had blood on his hands as he does in the film.
If there's a villain in Oppenheimer, it's Lewis Strauss. He's depicted as a vindictive
man who has it out for Oppenheimer because he embarrassed him during the debate about
the export of isotopes and stood in the way of the development of hydrogen bombs.
"He was a righteous guy. I think he was a great public servant,
but he's always behind the scenes. I've always appreciated the people who are backstage."
In real life, there was even more animosity. Oppenheimer and Strauss were as similar as
they were different: both were the sons of German Jewish immigrant businessmen, but a
recession hit Strauss' family harder. Both were smart and ambitious with plans to study physics,
but Strauss couldn't afford to continue his education. Oppenheimer was liberal,
while Strauss was conservative. And Oppenheimer was secular, while Strauss was religious.
Strauss orchestrated the demise of Oppenheimer's reputation, but he also
brought about his own ruin in the process. Three votes, including that of Senator John F. Kennedy,
made the difference as he failed to be appointed as Secretary of Commerce.
Oppenheimer ends with a fictional scene involving Albert Einstein, whom Lewis Strauss had long
believed that Oppenheimer had turned against him. A Senate aide played by Alden Ehrenreich
tells him that maybe they were discussing something more important. When we finally
see that conversation play out, Einstein talks about awards while Oppenheimer expresses his
belief that he set off an unstoppable chain reaction with the advent of nuclear power.
Einstein and Oppenheimer did indeed know each other, and Oppenheimer did indeed
receive a medal. It was the Enrico Fermi award for his contributions to physics,
and it was widely seen as an apology for his treatment during the McCarthy era.
Later in life, Oppenheimer continued to speak out about the threat of nuclear war
and in favor of international cooperation, but he was never the same after the humiliation he
suffered when his loyalty was questioned and his clearance was revoked. He and Kitty lived
part time in the Virgin Islands, where he rediscovered his love of sailing.
A lifelong smoker, Oppenheimer died of throat cancer in 1967 at the age of 62.