Spotlight

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Spotlight (2015) won the Best Picture Oscar for its story based on actual events involving widespread child abuse by Boston Catholic priests and the cover-up perpetrated by the Catholic Church. It builds tension and outrage as the revelation of the horrors become real for the reporters, and thus also the audience.

The film begins in Boston in 1976 at a police precinct. The police and the District Attorney’s office are trying to keep secret the child molesting incident by a priest of small children. They are keeping the press away. One of the cops says about an arraignment, “What arraignment?” Obviously, there will be none. A representative makes affirmations to the victim’s family about all the good that the Catholic Church does and that the offending priest will be transferred, as if that is supposed to lessen the effect of the abuse. The film then shows the conspiracy to cover up the atrocity.

We jump to 2001, which shows the length of time that the crimes have endured. Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) heads up the Bostone Globe’s Spotlight division which does in-depth investigative reporting. He tells the new editor of the newspaper, a somber Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) that it takes several months to find a story the four-member team will work on and publish, which points to the thoroughness of the work. (Schreiber’s Marty is a quiet, deliberative speaker and is described sarcastically as “a barrel of laughs).

The fact that many reporters are from Boston and some are Catholic makes the following revelations even more upsetting. They report to Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery), who has the investigative gene since his father was Ben Bradlee who was the executive editor of the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s circulation is down and there may be more cuts, already showing the impact of online news.

 Marty wants to explore why there hasn’t been an attempt to get sealed documents that show priest John Geoghan molested eighty children and Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) did nothing about it.

Spotlight reporter Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo, in a Supporting Oscar nominated performance) is a passionate and sometimes annoying character as he constantly questions everyone, even fellow reporters, about what’s going on. He says he runs to blow off steam, but Robby points out that he “runs to work,” so even his leisure time meshes with his job. He is interested in furthering the investigation. However, they all know there is going to be considerable blowback, including from the wide Catholic subscribership.

Mike meets the loud lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) who is not a diplomatic guy. He is also paranoid, rightfully so. The Church has tried to get him disbarred. He’s concerned about Mike wearing a wire and doesn’t even want him to take notes.

Robby and journalist Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) meet with attorney Eric McLeish (Billy Crudup). Eric reveals how difficult it is to prosecute the priest. It’s not a class action suit, which makes any adverse action a nightmare to handle given how each case is handled separately. There is a time limit of three years on bringing charges, and most victims don’t want to admit what happened until long after, since they were from tough neighborhoods and Catholic. Also, there is a cap of only $20,000 in a child molestation case which creates a lack of motivation to engage.

The Spotlight team digs and finds stories about abusive priests who were accused and being moved around by the Church. There is also the existence of a survivors’ organization. However, the newspaper must get solid evidence given the sensitivity of the issue, so they are resistant to move without solid evidence. The Church’s advocates stress the importance of faith, but here it is used to evade responsibility, to believe in something no matter the negatives.

As a tradition, Marty, a new editor, meets Cardinal Law (an ironic name given the situation). More irony in that the cardinal was once an editor. He gives Marty a copy of a book detailing Catholic catechism, as if to indoctrinate him?

The reporters meet with Phil Saviano (Neal Huff), who runs the survivor group, SNAP. He says, “when you’re a poor kid from a poor family, religion means a lot. And when a priest pays attention to you, it’s a big deal.” Phil is trying to get these lapsed Catholic reporters (and also the audience) to empathize with the victims and understand the context of the situation. He says, “It’s like God asking for help,” when the priest wants favors. When the priest pushes for sexual favors, “how do you say ‘no’ to God?” Phil says. He says it isn’t just physical rape, it’s also “spiritual” violation. The priest here, “robs you of your faith.” Victims will turn to alcohol, drugs, commit suicide, and some are survivors who are in SNAP. Phil says he sent information five years prior and he is angry because even the Boston Globe didn’t pursue the story earlier.

Mike’s persistence makes him a good reporter, and he gets the lawyer Garabedian to let him interview Patrick (Jimmy LeBlanc), a victim in one of the cases. He doesn’t want Mike to use his name because he has a child now, and he wants to keep the story hidden out of shame. His father committed suicide and his mother was schizophrenic. Here we have a vulnerable person that can be groomed at the age of twelve. The priest took him for ice cream and then started touching the boy. Mike observes that there are needle marks on Patrick’s arm, which verifies what Phil said about the effects on victims. Patrick here confesses to a journalist instead of a priest, and it is cathartic. He then allows Mike to use his name and says to get “these assholes.”

Mike’s interview alternates with Sacha talking to Joe (Michael Cyril Creighton), who realized he was gay at a young age, and when the priest urged him to have sex with him, Joe felt it was like a holy man was saying it was okay to be gay. Later in life the realization that he was abused selfishly by the priest traumatized associations he had with men, even though it was his sexual orientation. Just walking by his neighborhood’s Catholic church brings back awful memories, showing how he can’t escape the pain of the past. She also finds out that Joe talked to lawyer Eric McLeish who discouraged lawsuits, which he didn’t mention before. More covering up the truth.

Mike and the others thoroughly research the information and realize there has been an epidemic of sexual assaults by priests on children who had “shame” in their lives, so the pedophiles knew the children would not want to add to that feeling by exposing their predators. Mike discovers that the Church began smear campaigns to discredit anyone who tried to expose these priests. In an archive that lists the priests by name and when they arrived and left parishes. Matt (Brian Darcy James) notes that the priests under investigation all were discharged on “sick leave,” or reassigned, blanket cover-up designations. There is a bad smell which turns out to be a dead rat in the room, a symbolic addition that comments on how the whole situation is rotten.

Sacha and Robby go back to McLeish and find out he was part of sweeping the abuse under the Church’s rug. He didn’t even file action in the court system but kept the meager settlements between his office and the archdiocese, who have the records that the Spotlight team can’t access. There were confidentiality agreements so McLeish can’t divulge names. As Sacha later says he received a third of all the settlements and the rest of the information was hidden by the Church.

Marty is treated like an alien when he goes to a Catholic Charities Appeal dinner. Pete Conley (Paul Guilfoyle), on the board of the Charities, vouches for his attendance there, trying to ingratiate himself and by extension, the Church. Robby is also there, and although he is not part of the organization, he has friends who are, and he went to the Catholic school across from the Boston Globe. The connection is ironic, showing the pull of the past versus the current outlook on those ties. Later Robby finds that a suspected priest was at his high school and molested a friend. Adding to this irony, Robby does investigating at this affair by interrogating Jim Sullivan (Jamey Sullivan) about his activity in helping a priest. Sullivan dismisses the questions and says that the people there in connection with the Church have done a great deal of good for the city. The film raises the question, without announcing it, does that good justify the atrocities that the priests perpetrated?

Mike meets with lawyer Garabedian, who is Armenian. Mike is Portuguese, but was born in Boston. Garabedian says that Marty is Jewish, and it takes an outsider in this case to investigate an entrenched, sacred institution. He also says that if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to “abuse” that child. He sees this insulated Catholic Boston world as a fortress that must be attacked. When asked, Mike says that his wife does not like that he spends so much time working, and it turns out he is separated. The lawyer says he never married because what he does is “too important” to be distracted by a married life. Here we have the tradeoff between one’s own personal happiness and social purpose. Later, Garabedian tells Mike that he had a priest, who was threatened with exile to South America unless he kept quiet about abuse, who confessed to the lawyer. But the archdiocese stopped legal documents attesting to the cover-up to be made public, so powerful is the Church in Boston at this time. (Garabedian is eating often when he meets with Mike, attesting to how he must get nourishment on the run to fit his always busy work. And Mike is always running, which shows he has the same mindset).

On a telephone call, Richard Sipe (the voice of actor Richard Jenkins), a psychotherapist, gives statistics from a report as far back as 1985 that the Church knew about, including Cardinal Law, that there could be 90 priests (research indicates the number is 87) who are pedophiles in Boston. Sipes says he may not be a member of the Church anymore, but “the Church is an institution, Mike, made of men; it's passing. My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two.” The film implies that is the conclusion of many Catholics that keep their faith in their religion even if they have lost that faith in the Catholic Church.

To show how this abuse hits close to home, reporter Matt sees the address of one of the probable priests in treatment down the block from his house.

Robby confronts McLeish again and threatens by saying they could write a story about lawyers who made money off the settlements unless he gets the names of the priests and the victims. McLeish says he sent a list a while back to the Globe because he needed the newspaper’s backing if he was going to go public. Saviano, who heads up SNAP, also said he sent information to the Globe before. Apparently, the story was buried. So, the newspaper is not without sin in this story.

McLeish resends the list he forwarded before with 47 priests noted. Marty says it’s more important that they show the system is corrupt, that the cover-up was systemic, instead of just focusing on the individual priests. The implication here is that the problem will have a limited focus unless they expose the wider conspiracy.

A montage showing Sacha hitting the bricks, interviewing residents, including a policeman who says nobody wants to put “cuffs” on a priest. They show how it wasn’t just those in power who kept a lid on the abuse. Neighbors exerted peer pressure to keep things silent. One victim said his mother “put out cookies” for the clergy. The movie shows the darker side of religion when its grip on people’s lives becomes dark instead of enlightening.

Sacha has a breakthrough when she talks to one ex-priest, Ronald Paquin (Richard O’Rourke) who admits to “fooling around” with boys. But he says he received no “satisfaction” from the experiences. He didn’t rape anybody because he knows the difference because he himself was raped. So, the film shows that abuse perpetuates itself, and here is a priest who doesn’t even understand his own pathology or the harm he inflicted on others. As Sacha leaves Paquin’s house, two boys ride by on bikes, emphasizing how close possible victims can be to predators.

The tragedy of 911 puts a major delay on the Spotlight story, but Mike works on getting the documents that Garabedian mentioned made public, and Robby and Sacha go to Robby’s old high school where a Father Talbot molested his friend. They find more obstruction of information. It seems to Robby that everyone in power knows the true story, except them, and they are the newspaper, the emphasis here is on “news.”

Mike gets a judge to finally allow the public records to actually become public. The records show that Cardinal Law quashed the evidence on the notorious Father Geoghan who molested several children. Make is angry that Robby doesn’t want to run the story until they get information on the covering up of more than one priest’s actions. The implication here is that Robby doesn’t want the Church to get the chance to shut the story down before its implications show more widespread atrocities.

The story not only affects Robby personally because of the molesting priest at his high school. Sacha won’t go to mass anymore with her grandmother. Mike says he liked going to church when he was younger and always thought he would return to it before this story came to them.

Conley, the Catholic Charities board member, meets Robby and tries to put a wedge between Robby and Marty, saying the latter doesn’t care about Boston and is just trying to advance his own career and move on. He then subtly threatens Robby by saying how Robby will still be in Boston. The suggestion here is that Robby could suffer the fallout of the investigation into the Church. Robby retaliates by saying they will be running the story.

Children sing “Silent Night” in the background since it is approaching Christmas. The voices of the innocents contrast with the crimes against youths as Mike types up parts of the story. Robby gets lawyer Sullivan to acknowledge the priests who he helped protect for the Church. The reporters note that the festival of the Epiphany approaches in the Catholic calendar, which they say is an appropriate word for the revelation that is coming.

Robby tells the others, including Marty and Ben, that he was the Metro head at the time when the information came to the newspaper in 1993 and didn’t follow up on the priests’ abuse. So, it was his and the Globe’s fault along with the others that contributed to the news not getting out. Everyone was involved. Marty says that sometimes we “stumble” in the “dark” until a light shows us the “blame” that goes around. The title of the news outfit and the name of the movie points to that epiphany, where the spotlight shows us the truth. But, it’s better late than never to right wrongs.

The effect of the story is widespread and personal, as the impact hits Sacha’s grandmother. Matt says he has been writing a horror novel, fiction as opposed to the actual horror in life. The film ends with the Spotlight team receiving numerous calls from victims who now feel safe enough to tell their stories.

The end notes state that the Globe published close to 600 stories on the abuse. 249 were accused of abuse in the Boston archdiocese. There were well over 1000 victims. Cardinal Law resigned, but instead of punishment he was assigned to a high-ranking post in the Church in Rome which shows how the Church still refused to acknowledge its part in the scandal.

Mark Ruffalo in one of the extras attached to the film states that you can’t have a free society without a free press.

Oppenheimer

 SPOILER ALERT. The plot will be discussed.

Oppenheimer (2023), winner of the Best Picture Oscar, is based on the book entitled America Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist who helped create the atomic bomb in 1945. In mythology, Prometheus defied the gods and gave fire to humanity. For his transgression he was tortured by having a giant bird chew at his liver while he was in chains. It is a rich metaphor for daring to defy the order of things by reaching above the human realm. (A similar theme is in the tale of Icarus and Daedalus). Oppenheimer harnessed the basic power of existence and for that he suffered psychological punishment through guilt and the persecution of the political system when he advised against developing and using the weapons he helped to create.

The first image in the film is water rippling on the ground in the rain. That shot combines with depictions of atomic particles and an explosion due to atomic fission as Oppenheimer stares with a frightened look at the metaphorical consequences of his work. The result is the suggestion that there can be an escalating chain reaction once humans tamper with the building blocks of the universe. The water image repeats in the film as a reminder of consequences.

The film jumps to when Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, in his Oscar-winning role) undergoes scrutiny for his past political associations with communism. This great scientist receives praise for his achievements for America and then, as if needing a scapegoat for the destruction the United States unleashed, his country blames him for being unpatriotic. (Murphy’s gaunt appearance – he lost weight for the role – and his voice trying to stay steady, along with subtle facial changes transform the actor, and he is totally convincing in this performance).

The film then focuses on Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr, receiving the Best Supporting Oscar for this role. He is great at presenting surface calm with anger simmering below). Strauss was a leader on the Atomic Energy Commission. He is talking with an aide in connection with his nomination for a post with the Eisenhower Administration. He appears reluctant to be associated with the Congressional investigation into Oppenheimer. We get an immediate insight into Strauss’s personality when he corrects the aide by stating he should be addressed as “Admiral.” As we see he is negatively impacted by what he considers slights.

As he testifies before a committee, Oppenheimer states that when he was studying in England, he was troubled by images of a hidden universe, possibly a precognition of the awe and danger of the nuclear world. Christopher Nolan (Winner of the Best Director Oscar for this work) depicts shifting time periods and is adept at cutting to Oppenheimer’s viewpoint here, with visions of the atomic world, which he depicts in color. He said it was to stress the scientist’s point of view, which was subjective and the camera is closer to Oppenheimer, making the face a landscape, according to the cinematographer. The screenplay was in the first person, a very unusual technique, to stress Oppenheimer’s take on things. Strauss’s scenes are in black and white, supposedly an objective viewpoint, at least as Strauss sees the facts, and the camera shoots farther away to suggest objectivity. Nolan said, despite the back and forth shifting of time periods, structured it first as an origin story, then a kind of suspense film in making the bomb, and then a trial sequence. Nolan combines old school with new school technology. He does not prefer CGI, and still uses film, but IMAX has visual resolution superior to digital photography. This film is the first to do black-and-white in IMAX.

Back in time, Kenneth Branagh plays famous scientist Neils Bohr, who advises Oppenheimer to leave Cambridge since Oppenheimer is not great at lab work and should delve only into theory. Bohr says that to truly understand the science he must not only read the music he must “hear the music.” Oppenheimer says he can. The musical score in the film echoes his ecstatic insights and the deeper tones of those revelations.

Oppenheimer poisoned an apple for his demeaning professor but stops Bohr from eating it. The apple has Biblical references, showing that knowledge kills innocence and can lead to a fall from grace. It also shows the darkness inside of Oppenheimer that here manifests in a personal manner and later in a global one.

He throws glasses into the corner of his room as if the broken, dangerous shards mimic what happens when matter is fractured. He stares at a cubist painting which depicts various sides of reality in the same viewing, which is what Oppenheimer sees as he considers the totality of existence.

Back at the confirmation hearing, Strauss notes he first met Oppenheimer for a position at Princeton University. He corrects Oppenheimer by saying his name is pronounced “Straws,” another example of Strauss’s wish for proper recognition. He says that no matter the pronunciation, “they know I’m Jewish,” which may accurately stress a reason for his insecurity. (Oppenheimer was also Jewish, although his parents moved away from the religion toward a more secular belief system). Strauss asks why Oppenheimer didn’t recruit Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), who also is at Princeton, for the Manhattan Project which initiated the research to develop the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer says that Einstein was the best scientist of “his time” for his theory of relativity published many years prior. Oppenheimer seems superior in his manner here. When he asks Strauss if he was a physicist the latter says he was a “self-made man,” implying the scientists had an unfair advantage in life. He says he was a shoe salesman. Oppenheimer says the successful Strauss was once a “lowly shoe salesman.” Strauss takes offense at the adjective and corrects by saying, “just a shoe salesman.” Oppenheimer has an unheard conversation at this point with Einstein near a pond on the campus. Afterwards Einstein walks past Strauss as if oblivious of the man being there. Strauss later says to the Congressional Committee that Oppenheimer must have said something which caused Einstein to “sour” his feelings toward Strauss. Also, the fact that Oppenheimer is not jumping at the position offered at Princeton irritates Strauss. All these details about what Straus perceives as slights show how he will eventually undermine Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer met Isidor Rabi (David Krumholz) in Holland. Rabi is amazed at Oppenheimer’s brilliance because he learned Dutch sufficiently in six weeks to give a lecture in the language. (He also knows German and Sanskrit). They are both New York Jews but are very different. Oppenheimer seems aloof and formal, whereas Rabi knows Yiddish and is down-to-earth. He asks about prejudice against Jews, but Oppenheimer says where he works the scientists are all Jewish, so he didn’t sense bigotry. That statement also shows how Jews were exploited for their intelligence but also were subject to bigotry outside of the academic community. It is interesting that unlike Rabi who is connected to his Jewish New York roots, Oppenheimer takes positions at Cal Tech and Berkeley and there is a place in New Mexico that his brother owns. Oppenheimer is a traveler who seems rootless in his scientific quests except for a longing to return to the United States when away.

He starts out with a class with just Rossi Lomanitz (Josh Zuckerman) and more students then attend the study of quantum mechanics. However, political issues infiltrate the academic world. Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), working on practical applications such as a particle accelerator, warns Oppenheimer to keep political views, like being against the fascists in Spain, out of the classroom. The flashforward to the investigation into Oppenheimer’s life notes that the FBI had a file on the scientist before he even worked on government projects. Strauss testifies that there was suspicion about Oppenheimer’s left-wing views. Downey said that Nolan saw Strauss as a type of Salieri figure in Amadeus, jealous of someone who was considered a genius, like Mozart.

Oppenheimer, who declares that he is not a communist, talks about the dying of stars at a gathering of communist sympathizers. He says that when a star cools it collapses and the “gravity gets so contracted, it swallows everything.” His description of a black hole could symbolize his own rise and fall from public and private grace. At the party he meets Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) who wants him to become engaged more in practical solutions instead of theories, but he resists dogma. They become lovers. She has him read from one of his books which are the words of the Hindu God, Vishnu, who says “and now I am become Death. The destroyer of worlds.” She is having sex with him while he speaks. Dying and sexual climax are joined in often in poetry, and the scene is effective here in that aspect, and how Oppenheimer eventually sees himself in the same light as Vishnu.

The scene switches to a dark, desolate landscape in the howling wind in New Mexico which is a nice follow-up to the apocalyptic vision in the Sanskrit text. Oppenheimer and his brother Frank (Dylan Arnold) camp out. Oppenheimer says that when he was young, he thought that if he could combine physics with New Mexico his life would be good. He reaches that goal at Los Alamos, where his ideal situation also becomes the birthplace of enormous destruction.

Prior to the above time, there was no thinking of developing a bomb. But at Berkeley there is news that the Germans split an atom by bombarding it with neutrons. Oppenheimer says the math doesn’t show it’s possible, but Luis Alvarez, (Alex Wolff) working with Lawrence in the practical engineering department, replicates the German experiment, showing, as Lawrence says, that theory only takes one so far, and it doesn’t always predict reality. The fact that energy is released with fission points to the possibility of making an atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer is trying to live in the world of science along with elements of romance and politics to show some connection with Jean. He is not successful combining these parts of his life. She is unhappy with his lack of attention. He shows up with Alvarez to union meetings and argues with Lawrence about unionizing professors, which brings backlash from the university. On September 1, 1939, he co-publishes an article on black holes, a scientific breakthrough. It is in the theoretical world, divorced from the practical one, where he is most fulfilled.

The Nazis invade countries outside of Germany and the looming possibility of perverting pure science encroaches on Oppenheimer’s life. A quick shift to his interrogation shows that he did not like the communist view of noninvolvement toward the Nazi menace and did not join the Communist Party. He mentions that his wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), was a communist a long time ago for a period because of her prior marriage. The committee tries to exploit the pasts of himself and those of others he was involved with.

We then shift to his meeting Kitty, and her rejection of the Party because of what to her was the senseless death fighting the fascists in Spain. They become lovers, she becomes pregnant, and both end their prior romantic involvements. But Kitty experiences the same detachment from her new husband as Jean did with her lover. Oppenheimer is not there as a husband or a father as his home is in the world of science.

Lawrence, being the practical one, which fits his engineering application job, warns Oppenheimer that his attachment to unions that are “filled with communists” alienates him from the Federal Government and inhibits his fight against the Germans who may develop an atomic bomb, as Einstein warned. So, Oppenheimer said his association with unions would not interfere with working on a nuclear deterrent to the Nazis. At that time, he was not persecuted, but when the McCarthy era began, his past came back to haunt him.

Strauss later says, “Genius is no guarantee of wisdom. How could this man who saw so much be so blind.” Again, Oppenheimer may see the unseen world, but it obscures his vision of the overt one. He can visualize the chain reaction of atomic particles, but not the cause and effect of his social actions.

However, he shows he can apply his scientific mind to making an atomic bomb before the Nazis developed one. He convinces the dubious head of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) that he can coordinate the development of a nuclear weapon and run the lab at Los Alamos. (Damon has a small mustache, like the real Groves, but here it reminds one of Hitler’s, and one scientist calls him “Generalissimo,” referencing Spain’s fascistic Franco, so there is authoritarianism present to a degree here, too). Groves tries to question Oppenheimer’s resolve by implying that nobody will receive a Nobel Prize for making a bomb. The scientist wittily responds that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, which suggests the two sides of the coin that can come from inventions. Groves, however, does try to protect Oppenheimer from persecutions in the future. Oppenheimer knows that Groves can leverage him because of his left-wing past. Oppenheimer says that one thing they have going for them is “antisemitism,” implying the great scientists who are under Nazi rule are Jewish, and that might alienate the scientists and Hiter from each other.

Oppenheimer recruits American scientists, saying the government needs them, but as Alvarez notes wisely, “until they don’t.” We have here Oppenheimer’s dismissal of how politics works. Rabi does not want to join. He sees the bigger picture. He says, “You drop a bomb and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t want the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.” However, the immediacy of the problem wins him over. As Oppenheimer says, they might not be wise in the use of the atomic bomb, but he knows that the Nazis can’t be trusted with it. In this case, Oppenheimer is being realistic about the threat of Nazi world domination.

Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) hypothesizes that the detonation of a nuclear bomb could create a chain reaction that is unstoppable, destroying the world. Oppenheimer consults with Einstein. Einstein says that if widespread destruction is possible, then they must share the findings with the Nazis, because they would not want to obliterate what they want to conquer. After running through theoretical possibilities that world destruction was near zero the practical Groves says, “Zero would be nice,” an understated sarcastic statement given the horrific potential involved.

Another incident that haunts Oppenheimer at the investigation involves his friend, Haakon Chevalier (Jefferson Hall) who wanted the physicist to pass on information about the atomic bomb project to the Russians, who were our allies in WWII. Oppenheimer notes that act would be treason, but he did not report it as a security problem at the time, as he was caught between loyalty to his friend and his country.

The investigation attacks Oppenheimer, as he was warned by fellow scientists would happen. The government used him and when they were done, they went after him because of ties he had with others who were communists at one time. He had another liaison with Jean and Nolan puts in a stylized shot of a naked Oppenheimer making love to her while at the committee hearing which shows us what is going on in Oppenheimer’s mind. A livid Kitty watches as he admits to the one-night-stand. The image suggests that he is being exposed for not realizing how his past would resurface in his future. Later Jean commits suicide and Oppenheimer is plagued by guilt, here on a personal level, and later on a much wider scale.

The film shows several nasty individuals who saw the opportunity to better themselves at Oppenheimer’s expense after the scientist was no longer useful. One is Boris Pash (Casey Affleck) described by Groves as a man who has threatened to kidnap, interrogate, and kill possible allies of Russia. There is Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) who spearheads attacks in the committee questioning Oppenheimer’s loyalty. An example is his asking why Oppenheimer brought his ex-communist brother to Los Alamos, a politically naïve act on the part of the scientist. Another is William Borden (David Dastmalchian) who gets a hold of Oppenheimer’s classified file and accuses the physicist of helping Russia.

Bohr is able to escape to America. He says that Heisenberg is now working with the Nazis, which shows how dangerous the blooming nuclear age will become. Bohr is not there to help but to look beyond the current situation and urges Oppenheimer to use his influence to warn the U. S. Government that the world has moved into a frightening phase. He calls Oppenheimer a Prometheus figure. That image stresses the cause and effect of how discovering powerful tools can be used for terrible reasons. Maybe to convince himself, Oppenheimer repeats what Bohr said to him earlier by now saying, “You can’t lift the stone without being ready for the snake that’s revealed.” Bohr meant it as a warning, but Oppenheimer uses it as a natural consequence for the need to open a Pandora’s Box.

With the hydrogen bomb researched by Teller, there is the possibility, later realized, of a device a thousand times more powerful than an atomic bomb. As the scientists along with Strauss and government official Vannevar Bush (Matthew Modine) argue the need or danger of developing a hydrogen bomb, we get an intense subjective view from Oppenheimer’s perspective. The resounding sound of stomping feet resembling soldiers marching off to war echoes in his ears. He urges restraint in further development of nuclear arms and says that there should be restriction of an arms race with Russia, who has replaced Germany as an enemy. The implication here is that there will always be a foe to justify the further development of weapons. However, metaphorically, he is trying to defuse an explosive after he has already set it to go off.

Back to the Los Alamos lab, Oppenheimer uses a quote from John Donne who said in a sonnet, “Batter my heart, three-personed God.” So, he names the test “Trinity” to see if the A-Bomb will work. The reference is full of contradictions. The poem is a plea by a person who states the only way he can be saved is through force from a supreme being. Oppenheimer’s naming the test suggests that he sees salvation from evil (Nazism) only through submission to a greater power (atomic).

However, the Allies defeated Germany and Hitler was dead. The question is whether it is necessary to drop the fury of atomic bombs on Japan. Oppenheimer, along with Bush and Groves, meet with the Secretary of Defense Henry Stimson (James Remar) concerning this decision. Oppenheimer wants to backtrack now since the Nazis are no longer a threat. Why not show the Japanese the force of the bomb before dropping it? A lame excuse is that it might fail and that will reveal our plans. That would assume that Japan could somehow prepare for an atomic attack, doubtful at best. The military members there and the Secretary talk about the many thousands that will die in abstract terms. Stimson says he took the city of Kyoto off the list because he went there on his honeymoon. He is playing God with innocent lives based on nostalgic memories. A merciless Groves wants to drop two bombs to show the effectiveness of the blast and then to force a surrender. This strategy is based on the nonempirical conclusion that the Japanese will never surrender otherwise.

Nolan takes his time to depict the Trinity test detonation, building suspense by focusing on the different roles of those involved. The furious sound of violins on the soundtrack adds to the tension. Teller only uses a pair of sunglasses and sunblock on his face while he sits outside in a beach chair, as if he is watching for his own amusement a fireworks display. It shows his apocalyptic tendency, which is frightening in its cavalier attitude toward this event. IMDb notes that he resembles Dr. Strangelove, the mad scientist in the Stanley Kubrick film. Nolan does not give the audience the sound of the explosion here, only the fireball looking like a hellish inferno which ends in the dreaded mushroom cloud. The emphasis instead is on the breathing of those that developed this monstrous creation. Afterwards, there is cheering and applause, which is understandable given the intense work over three years to which the large group committed themselves. One who does not feel elated is Rabi, who was reluctant to participate on the project.

After all the intellectually detached scientific work, what they have made is a tangible weapon, and as it rides away on a military transport, the harsh reality of that fact sinks in as Oppenheimer hopes that the terror of the atomic bomb will stop all wars in the future. History has shown that although the far more destructive hydrogen bomb became the nuclear weapon of choice, there has been no use of it so far because of fear. But wars still rage on, and the potential for mass destruction looms over them.

After the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, we then meet up again with the sound of those stomping feet in celebration now at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer says, “The world will remember this day,” but will it be in celebration or in infamy? That question is what exists inside of Oppenheimer’s mind. The background shakes and he gets a vision of the patriotic cheering of the project’s workers and their families turning into one of melting corpses. Oppenheimer concludes that he has become, like Vishnu, “Death. The destroyer of worlds.”

Oppenheimer meets with President Harry Truman (Gary Oldman) who acts like the Russians will not get the atomic bomb despite Oppenheimer’s belief that an arms race is possible and should be prevented. Oppenheimer wants nothing else to do with developing weapons and says they should give Los Alamos “back to the Indians.” Instead, despite the President’s position about the lack of the Russian nuclear capability, the administration wants to expand the New Mexico town to pursue the making of a hydrogen bomb. When Oppenheimer says that he feels he has blood on his hands, a dismissive Truman gives him a handkerchief as if he should wipe the blood off. He says that the use of nuclear weapons was his choice and its not about Oppenheimer. He then says to an aid to not let that “crybaby” back in his office. Truman here seems callous about the horrific effect of nuclear war and the emotional toll that weighs on those that contributed to it.

Scientists and those associated with Oppenheimer who were against further use of nuclear technology paid the price for their views. Oppenheimer’s brother was blacklisted by all the universities in the country and Lomanitz wound up laying track for the railroad. Chevalier went into exile most likely because of the shift to anticommunism in the United States

But Oppenheimer pushed for arms control instead of pursuing development of the H-Bomb, trying to compensate for that blood on his hands. The movie depicts Oppenheimer as a conflicted man, trying to navigate the morality of helping to create monstrous weapons for the immediate Nazi problem while at the same time advising against their construction in the future.

Strauss tells Oppenheimer that Klaus Fuchs (Christopher Denham), a scientist at Los Alamos, was providing information to the Soviets. Once there was confirmation of a spy at the test site, the FBI stepped up surveillance on Oppenheimer. The view here is that people can become guilty by association, not by fact.

Some of those government officials who supported Oppenheimer now try to bury him in the public view. Secretary of Defense Stimson now says the bomb was developed for an enemy that was already defeated. Strauss uses the press to step up his positive publicity by sending out the message through a reporter that Strauss fought Oppenheimer and America “won.” It turns out Borden, who lies when he says he had no contact with anyone from the AEC, received Oppenheimer’s private personnel file from the inferiority-complex-ridden AEC ranking member Strauss, who devised the way the scientist would be ruined. Borden, in a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, accused Oppenheimer of being a Russian undercover agent. Strauss didn’t want to give Oppenheimer a platform to be a “martyr.” He wanted a closed hearing in a small office, with no burden of proof needed to be established and no discovery of evidence for the defense, since the committee is not charging the physicist with a crime. The committee revokes Oppenheimer’s secret clearance, thus labeling him as a threat to United States security. Kitty knows it is Strauss behind the conspiracy, labeling him as being vindictive for perceived slights, and admonishes her husband justly for not fighting enough. He even shook Teller’s hand after Teller said he thought Oppenheimer was not a good security risk. All the while, Strauss, the proverbial snake in the grass, acts like he is helping Oppenheimer navigate the attack Strauss devised.

At Strauss’s Senate confirmation hearing regarding his nomination as Commerce Secretary, he is concerned he will be tainted by his connection to Oppenheimer. He makes sure he lets the Senate know that he disagreed with Oppenheimer about letting President Truman know about the possibility of a hydrogen bomb. Strauss also says that the Russians wouldn’t have known how to make an atomic bomb if there wasn’t a spy at Los Alamos, another attack on Oppenheimer because the physicist was the leader at Los Alamos.

However, Dr. David Hill (Rami Malek) testifies that American scientists, who rally around Oppenheimer, would like Strauss not hold any government position. He says that Strauss led the attack against Oppenheimer when the latter opposed the sale of isotopes to Norway in a manner that seemed to humiliate Strauss. Hill reveals that it was Strauss who had the hatchet man Robb appointed as the interrogating attorney. The confirmation hearing on Strauss ironically becomes the same type of defamation panel that Strauss concocted for Oppenheimer, with no burden of truth needed and no official trial administered. When Strauss thought that Oppenheimer said something negative about him to Einstein the truth was that they were not even talking about Strauss. The film implies that a person like Strauss who thinks everything going on is about them is very selfish in their insecurity. The Senate denies Strauss’s confirmation, with Senator John F. Kennedy being one of the deciding votes against Strauss.

The film ends as it began with that conversation by the pond with Einstein. He was telling Oppenheimer that government officials persecute you for their own guilt and years later give you an award to ease their consciences. We get a flash-forward of that scene as Oppenheimer, now an old man, receiving in 1963 the Enrico Fermi Award from President Lyndon Johnson. What shook Einstein into silence at the pond and his ignoring of Strauss was that Oppenheimer said to him that they had put into motion the chain reaction that would cause the inevitable destruction of the world.

Reversal of Fortune

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Reversal of Fortune (1990), can refer to several aspects of this film, which is based on a true story. It can point to the change from consciousness to a coma that Sunny Von Bulow (Glenn Close) endures. It can also indicate what happens to her husband, Claus Von Bulow (Jeremy Irons, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for this role), who is accused of trying to kill his wife. It may be that Claus literally receives a fortune because if his wife dies, he inherits her extreme wealth. And finally, the word “reversal” could mean reversing a conviction of murder on appeal. The film also presents a situation where what is real can be difficult to determine.

The first shot of the film shows the opulent estates of the rich in Newport, Rhode Island from the air, as if the rich soar above others, and it highlights the reference to “fortune” in the title. But then, shot shifts to a hospital, pointing to that reversal of fortune. Sunny is on life support. The film has Sunny narrating while in her coma, a device that allows Glenn Close to add her voice in addition to the scenes where she is in flashback. The voiceover allows suggestions as to whether her condition was the result of her own actions or due to her husband’s intent. She recovered from an earlier coma which could suggest she is at fault, but there is the possibility that Claus just used her tendencies to cover up his own murderous intent, and his first attempt failed.

The maid, Maria (Uta Hagen) and Sunny’s children from a prior marriage were suspicious after the first coma and the second put Sunny in a persistent vegetative state, from which she did not recover. The police found that Sunny’s insulin level when she entered the hospital was high enough to cause a coma or kill her, most likely due to an injection. They found a needle supposedly encrusted with insulin residue, which pointed to Claus as the perpetrator. Claus could inherit fourteen million dollars, so there is motive. In addition, Claus and Sunny had an arrangement where he could have mistresses. Claus was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to thirty years. These are the general facts of the case.

The real story begins when lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) becomes involved. He says he takes cases that for him have either a moral or constitutional imperative. The contrast in the fairness of the justice system here occurs because Alan loses a case about two innocent Black youths at the time the wealthy Claus wants to hire him. Alan is skeptical of Claus’s innocence and will charge him a great deal to help him defend the more disadvantaged.

Claus has a snobbish voice, and Irons said it was the hardest part of his performance. He makes a reference to admiring the Jewish people, which, when going out of the way to be stated, sounds prejudicial. At lunch, when Alan wants to talk about the “unpleasantness,” Claus thinks he means the lawyer’s fee, not the health of his wife. It highlights Claus’s lack of empathy. Alan says that one thing in Claus’s favor is that everybody hates him, which means one can show that Claus can be a victim. Of course, it’s a left-handed comment.

Maria the maid testified that she found a vial of insulin and a hypodermic needle, yet Sunny was not diabetic. Alan at the beginning feels that he would have voted to convict Claus if on the jury. He says if Hitler had asked him to defend him, his choice would have been to defend him or kill him. He admits that he would take the case and then kill Hitler. That shows both sides of Alan, a person who wants to follow the law, but also thinks outside it when it comes to morality. (Alan was part of the defense teams for O. J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein trials, and defended President Donald Trump in the impeachment trials. It’s up to you to judge his legal and moral codes).

Alan gathers a team around him to question him, to keep him thinking objectively and considering different strategies. It shows how Alan is willing to let his ego come under scrutiny. In contrast, you have Claus, who says, “Let the chips fall where they may,” to which Alan says that is what an innocent person would say. Claus’s response with a sly smile is, “I know.” The scene reveals that Claus is a schemer who is centered on his own self-interest.

Claus adds context to the basic charges by saying Sunny detested doctors and that is why he didn’t call one immediately. He knew there were hypodermic needles because they injected themselves with vitamin B12 shots at one time. He also says that Sunny took some of his prescriptions.

One of Alan’s team members is Minnie (Felicity Huffman) who argues that Claus, a privileged aristocrat, is despicable and that by trying to get him off, they are culpable as “accessories after the fact” in allowing a heinous man to go free. Generally, Alan gives the usual argument that everyone must have a fair trial to ensure that the innocent ones “falsely accused” have the same rights to even the playing field. In Claus’s case he says he is “pissed off,” because the children hired their own investigator to search for evidence. If rich people can decide what the evidence is in a case, then that precedent will make it difficult for poor people to be investigated in the same way the privileged are.

The investigation reveals how unsavory characters get involved, trying to cash in on a high-profile case, or hiding mistakes, which shows the road to justice can be a deceptive one. For instance, there is the slimy David Marriott (Fisher Stevens) who says he helped deliver drugs to Sunny. He later edits a tape to make it look like Alan was paying him to falsify evidence. We don’t learn why he did that (an example of how truth can be twisted). The lawyer in the earlier trial has notes that he is unwilling to share, but which eventually become known. Alan feels that there was no finding of insulin until after the fact. Alan suggests there may have been a frame-up of Claus by Sunny’s children, the next in line in inheritance. But as one student later says, the children could have framed “a guilty man.” There is a news article which has author Truman Capote revealing that Sunny showed him how to inject drugs. So, there are several layers muddling the attempt to get at what really happened.

Claus has a very dark sense of humor, which alienates him from others. When he meets Alan’s defense team, he says, “What do you give a wife who has everything? …An injection of insulin.” And, “How do you define a fear of insulin? … Claus-traphobia.” In another conversation with Allan, who says that a priest is an ideal witness, because “it’s like getting the word of God,” Claus says, “I checked. God is unavailable.” The last lines of the film have Claus getting cigarettes at a pharmacy. After the clerk recognizes him, he says he also wants, “a vial of insulin…just kidding.”

At one interview, Alan, trying to decipher Claus’s psyche, asks why he stayed in the flat where his mother died for five days until reporting the death. Claus is not forthcoming, saying, “My mother is my own business.” Who is this guy? Is he innocent or a killer? That is what Alan is trying to figure out. Especially when we have the narration of the comatose Sunny saying that she took huge amounts of laxatives and aspirin, used an assortment of sedatives, smoked a great deal, and drank to excess on certain occasions. We have a situation where it is difficult to determine what is true and what is false about the circumstances surrounding her vegetative state. Given her self-destructive actions, there is the possibility of her being suicidal.

Claus does not demonize Sunny. Quite the opposite. He says that she was “lovely,” and loved Christmas because more than anything else, she enjoyed giving gifts to others. The couple weren’t intimate for quite a while, but even though she allowed Claus his brief infidelities with call girls, she was hurt when Claus became attached to Alexandra Ises (Julia Hagerty) who sent his love letters to her to spite Sunny. According to Claus, they did discuss divorce, but he wanted to stay with Sunny. However, he wanted to work to have a sense of value, but Sunny wanted him to herself. As Claus tells Allan’s team, she thought her husband was confusing since he married her for her money but still wanted to have a job. Claus tells the team that the second coma was “much more theatrical.” An outraged Alan asks if Claus even cares about his wife’s horrible predicament. He claims he does, but he says. “I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve.” The audience can never get a true fix on what makes Claus and Sunny tick.

Comatose Sunny rightfully says, “it’s easy to forget this is all about me.” The whole story focuses on Claus, but she is the one who is hopelessly confined to a bed, needing others to maintain her existence. That may say something about the rest of us who would rather center on a scandal than on someone’s suffering, or her prior life full of passion and tenderness with Claus, and love for her children. There is a scene where she and Claus meet early on at an outdoor party where a pet tiger approaches her and she is bold about giving the creature a snack. Claus is excited by this act and joins Sunny near the animal. Sunny says, “I never liked people much, not as a rule.” She says that Claus was “different. Not a normal person I guess.” Here we have a sense of how out of the mainstream they were, more comfortable with a wild beast than other humans. Sunny’s voiceover states that things later became “brutish” and “cold,” and she wonders, “is he the Devil? If so, can the Devil get justice?” She wonders if all the legal activity is “in Satan’s service.” That sounds like what Alan talked about earlier concerning how even the guilty must have a fair trial.

Alan’s personality is not free of guilt, also. He sacrifices his personal relationships for his work, which he concedes is “all that I care about.” His own son interrupts him and sarcastically introduces his daughter to Alan, as if he hasn’t had time for her. His ex-girlfriend, Sarah (Annabella Sciorra), who is helping him with the case, says he doesn’t pay attention to those he cares about. He may have invited her to the team so he can be close to her, without being emotionally available.

After describing what happened the night of the second coma, Claus says he discovered Sunny passed out in her bathroom, her “sanctuary,” an almost religious word ironically attributed to a very non-spiritual place, He tells a doubting Alan, “I don’t know the whole truth.” That goes for the audience as well. As Alan says it’s very difficult to trust a man one doesn’t understand. Alan says to Claus, “You’re a very strange man.” To which, Claus responds, “You have no idea.” He admits not only to his “strangeness,” which is off-putting, but that Alan can’t fathom him, and neither can we.

The team eventually gets tests that show that the prosecution’s evidence of residual insulin on a hypodermic needle was inconclusive. Sunny was hypoglycemic, and then would overdose on sweets, which could lead to overcompensation by the body to produce insulin. Alan is able to introduce the new evidence despite the fact the case is on appeal by citing a Rhode Island Supreme Court justice’s prior ruling. They are able to reverse the convictions.

But Alan and Sarah tell Alan’s son two differing versions of what could have happened. Sunny was suicidal, could have taken too many medications, wanted the windows opened, and passed out in her bathroom while Claus was walking the dogs, exercising, and showering. She was ready to pee, and that’s how her nightgown was hiked up. Or, Claus opened the windows and dragged her into the bathroom, which hiked up the sleep clothes, and his actions helped the barbiturates on the way to her destruction, So, we are still in the dark.

Sunny’s last words are that we will only know the truth “When you get where I am,” which means not in this life. After Alan tells Claus about the good news, Alan, again showing the division on how he lives his life, says to him, “Legally, this was an important victory. Morally, you’re on your own.”

As are we.