As the newest Christopher Nolan drama Oppenheimer makes its big run this summer, audiences are seeing why the epic earned its three-hour run time with more being explored than initially thought, as it not only deals with the Manhattan Project, but it is also an intimate look into J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life. Many are praising Nolan for his work, especially an Oppenheimer biographer who claimed to be emotionally recovering long after watching the movie. With historical figures such as this getting the big screen treatment, the families of the subject usually chime in on the accuracy of their namesake.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s grandson, Charles Oppenheimer, had spoken with Time about the points of his life that the movie had gotten right versus what the movie had gotten wrong. Prior to viewing, Charles noted that Christopher Nolan warned him that there were scenes in the film “that you have to dramatize a bit and parts that are changed.” Oppenheimer’s grandson would have only changed one part — he would have omitted a scene early on where a frustrated J. Robert Oppenheimer shockingly decided to poison his professor’s apple with cyanide after the professor ridiculed his lab work.
Charles would explain, “The part I like the least is this poison apple reference.” He was equally not pleased about that section in the biography from which the film is based, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. “If you read American Prometheus carefully enough, the authors say, ‘We don’t really know if it happened.’ There’s no record of him trying to kill somebody. That’s a really serious accusation and it’s historical revision. There’s not a single enemy or friend of Robert Oppenheimer who heard that during his life and considered it to be true.”
He continued, “Sometimes facts get dragged through a game of telephone. In the movie, it’s treated vaguely and you don’t really know what’s going on unless you know this incredibly deep backstory. So it honestly didn’t bother me. It bothers me that it was in the biography with that emphasis, not a disclaimer of, this is an unsubstantiated rumor that we want to put in our book to make it interesting.”