Friday 26 January – At last – ‘Oppenheimer’ in the village hall

Dear all,

At last we can present Oppenheimer on the Westbury big screen. It’s the big one you’ve all been waiting for – winner of 5 Golden Globes and nominated for 13 Oscars. This blockbuster runs for nearly three hours so we shall start projecting earlier than usual at 7.45pm, but fear not – there will be the usual drinks and nibbles . We’ll just be there from 7pm rather than 7.30, so still time to chat and meet up with your neighbours.

The story, just in case you’ve been completely ignoring all media these last few months –

During World War II, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer is appointed to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer and a team of scientists spend years developing and designing the atomic bomb. Their work comes to fruition on July 16, 1945, as they witness the world’s first nuclear explosion, forever changing the course of history.

And the critics say –

That the director, Christopher Nolan, turned this most devastating of stories into a riveting pop culture phenomenon without ceding one inch on its tragic dimensions is surely an achievement for the ages.

What Nolan has put before our eyes definitively deserves to be seen, as does Cillian Murphy’s performance in the role of Oppenheimer and the irreconcilable but fantastic Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Lewis Strauss.

Every scene feels like a cataclysm waiting to happen, fitting for a film that builds, step-by-step, to the creation of a cataclysm machine. Oppenheimer both summons awe for what it took to build the bomb and for the changes it wrought.

Nolan captures that theoretical aspect of Oppenheimer on the screen in very personal moments… that energy, that swirl of passion in the unknown it’s all there, and it is phenomenal to watch.

Epic in scale and substance, writer-director Christopher Nolan has arguably produced the best film of his impressive career. He delivers a nuanced script … and turns a complex and defining moment in history into a pulse-pounding thriller.

This is a complex look at a complicated man, but Oppenheimer unequivocally establishes that this is a story worth telling — and that Nolan was the perfect filmmaker to do it.

So do come and if you’ve already seen it you’ll know that it’s worth a second viewing. Tickets £8 to include your first drink, in the village shop or on the door.
Sue