Oppenheimer’ Ending Explained: Are We Past the Point of No Return?
Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Oppenheimer.When sizing up a film like Oppenheimer, a sprawling work about the man behind the creation of the first nuclear weapons that may just be writer-director Christopher Nolan’s most colossal and mature film yet, there is a temptation to pull on the many threads that unravel before us. True to the book on which it is based, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “American Prometheus,” it spans decades in the life of J.
As some context, the closing scene is not actually the one furthest forward in time. Rather, it is one that we saw early on from a different perspective after Oppenheimer succeeded in his mission of making the atomic weapon that is now recontextualized. As played by a positively haunting Cillian Murphy in one of his best performances to date, we had previously observed the physicist meeting with Albert Einstein down by a small body of water while Lewis Strauss watches on.
That this doesn’t happen when they do their test seems to offer relief, as the world continues spinning just as it did before. However, while Oppenheimer tries to run from what he has created, the reality is that it has forever and fundamentally changed life for the worse. A scene where he gives a speech after the bomb is dropped is meant to be victorious, but it is horrifying as his delusions are obliterated.
When he then talks in that final scene with Einstein, who had himself initially tried to push for the program before by writing a letter to President Roosevelt before also turning against it and deeply regretting his initial support, the otherwise tranquil scene by the water is defined by tragedy. Both men, full of insights about the possibilities of the world, were now living in one that was worse off because of this same knowledge.
The Ending of 'Oppenheimer' Reveals the Lasting Legacy of the Man When Oppenheimer then stands alone, with one final vision of the world being utterly and completely destroyed by his creation playing out fully, the unmitigated terror of what they’ve done is not tempered by his speaking it aloud. His empty acknowledgment came too late for the thousands who died and the many more who could in an instant. It is in this moment, without anything else to say, that his legacy is laid bare.
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