I hadn’t watched Oppenheimer until yesterday. I would’ve told you that I just hadn’t gotten around to it, but now I know it was probably on purpose. This is the same reason I don’t re-watch Inside Out and will never see Inside Out 2; they’re excellent, but simply too heavy for me.

Oppenheimer is the account of the creation of the atomic bomb, and might be the best film I’ve ever seen. This is not to say I liked it, I don’t think I did. It’s perfectly written, directed and acted, there is no imaginable way upon which it could be improved.

Every now and again, with truly great art, immediately after closing the book or the credits roll or the final notes fade into silence, I cry and cry. In most cases (like, say, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” by the Smiths, or My Grandmother Told Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, by Fredrik Backman), it’s just the overwhelming beauty that does it. A newborn baby or a sunset are much the same sensation – a gift perfectly created, like a hand that reaches through your chest and pries open your heart just a little to pour some new flavor of love, forcing it to expand and grow 2 sizes in an instant. You wonder if you’ll survive, if you can physically take this, but you can. In fact, you’re made for this, you just forgot for a minute. The impact leaves you different, in every good way, like a return to who you are.

…Obviously, words aren’t enough.

Oppenheimer is that sort of thing, but it’s also something else. It’s the account of man’s inhumanity to man. Progress, in this instance, is the ability to kill more and more in less and less time, most efficiently. In the last line of the film, Oppenheimer reminds Albert Einstein of a conversation on if the explosion would set off a chain reaction that would destroy the world, then says, “I believe we did.”

This movie is like the inverse of the climax of The Dark Knight. In that film, the Joker outfits 2 cruise ships (1 full of Gotham citizens, the other full of Gotham prisoners) with explosives and the detonator for the other. Then, he gives them 1 hour to act, to destroy the other before they could do the same to you. This is the principle motivation for Oppenheimer: kill them all before they can kill you.

Where the Dark Knight was Nolan’s hope for our good, for our redemption, Oppenheimer is much more cynical. One side actually pushes the detonator. The most disturbing thing is that the Dark Knight is a work of fiction, while Oppenheimer is horrifyingly real.