4 Comments

Very thought-provoking review. I agree with a majority of what you've said here, although I didn't feel the lack of depth of Oppie's character as you put it. As you said once again, his personality occupies the negative space in the film that's left by the *commentary on his personality* by the rest of the characters in the movie.

One additional thought that I wanted to share in response to your criticism of (d) was the image of Oppie in society at that point. The result of the biased investigation into Oppie's communist ties in the AEC security hearing was a pretty big blot on his public persona. While it was indeed a wild goose chase that led to no formal Communist ties being established, the stripping of his security clearance really undermined all of the fame (or exacerbated his infamy) in society. However, I didn't really get this sense after the trial scenes completed. I felt like some of the extended interviews in the trial could possibly have been replaced with showing the public reactions to Oppie's defamation - perhaps that would let Strauss' big failure and the rest of Oppie's felt more like redemption after the fact.

What do you think?

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"his personality occupies the negative space" is such a good way of putting it. You nailed it.

Yeah, the Strauss stuff is just weird. I agree - the film kinda missed the point by not showing any public reactions at all, and how JRO became infamous because of it. I think it just wanted to show how small minded Strauss was and give the audience dramatic satisfaction of having him lose at his own game (go David Hill!). But very strange screenwriting choices overall, didn't really add up to a greater whole.

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Thanks for the review. I didn't get to see it and there are no IMAX screens at my location anyway. I think based on your opinion, this movie is a good one time watch with good concentration. Is it?

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Yeah, pretty much. It's worth watching in theatres but not in IMAX though.

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