The Barbenheimer phenomenon is taking the world by storm, but not everyone seems to be madly in love with Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan’s latest hits. That may be the case of Oppenheimer‘s grandson, who has found something he didn’t like about the movie based on the life of his grandfather.
J. Robert Oppenheimer is a very controversial historical figure since he was involved in the creation of a powerful weapon, and this is one of the reasons Nolan chose to tell his story, for the complexity behind the character and the important message he would be able to send to the audience while recreating such important events. But, of course, for the scientist family could have been hard to see part of their legacy recreated in a movie, dramatizing some real events.
This part of the article contains Oppenheimer’s spoilersIn fact, there’s one particular scene that was not pleasant to watch for Oppenheimer’s grandson. In an interview with Time, Charles Oppenheimer revealed which moment in the movie he wishes it wasn’t there:
“The part I like the least is this poison apple reference, which was a problem in American Prometheus. 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. American Prometheus got it from some references talking about a spring break trip, and all the original reporters of that story — there was only two maybe three — reported that they didn’t know what Robert Oppenheimer was talking about. Unfortunately, American Prometheus summarizes that as Robert Oppenheimer tried to kill his teacher and then they [acknowledge that] maybe there’s this doubt.”
Christopher Nolan Talked to Charles Oppenheimer About the Movie
Oppenheimer is based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the book Charles referred to when speaking about the apple scene, written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Jerwin. But, at the end of the day, the movie is an adaptation that should be taken as fiction, even when it is based on real life events.
Beyond the apple scene, Charles Oppenheimer found the rest of the movie mostly accurate and has no complaints about Christopher Nolan’s work:
“When I talked to Chris Nolan, at one point he said something roughly like, ‘I know how to tell a story out of this subject. There are going to be parts that you have to dramatize a bit and parts that are changed. As family members, I think you’re going to like some parts and dislike some parts. That’s probably led into my acceptance of the movie, even though I saw it very late, just when it came out. As a dramatized representation of the history, it was really largely accurate. There are parts that I disagree with, but not really because of Nolan.
