OPPENHEIMER ****

 Like Martin Scorsese and Alfred Hitchcock before him Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors who can guarantee a paying audience as surely as any of the big box-office draws in the acting profession. A film-maker of great skill he has nevertheless often eschewed 'seriousness' to work, if not necessarily in the 'popcorn' market, then certainly in the commercial field and that's where he has built up his following. But what will his followers think of "Oppenheimer"? Will today's movie-going generation even know who J. Robert Oppenheimer was, (at the full-house screening I attended I saw two people leave), and can Nolan do justice to his subject?

To that last question the answer is undoubtedly yes. As I say Nolan is a film-maker of great skill and "Oppenheimer" is unquestionably his best film to date. It's an old-school epic, three hours long, superbly shot on the biggest of canvases and with an all-star cast even if some of those Oscar-winning actors are reduced to cameos, (Gary Oldman as a devious Harry Truman). At its centre there's a terrific performance from Irish actor Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, chosen perhaps for his slight resemblance to the man but also because Nolan clearly saw in Murphy talents other of his screen roles never fully explored.

Of course, in typical Nolan fashion the narrative isn't linear. The film may begin with Oppenheimer the Cambridge student and end with Oppenheimer the decorated old man but in-between Nolan skips back and forth in time, shooting both in colour and in black and white and framing his film around two sets of 'hearings', one in which Oppenheimer, late in his career, appears before a committee of three to see if his security clearance will be renewed, knowing that this is nothing more than a kangaroo court; the other, filmed in black and white, the much larger senate committee hearings set up to determine the suitability of Lewis Strauss to be U.S. Secretary of Commerce in Eisenhower's government and in this role Robert Downey Jr. not only give the best performance of his career but should be a shoo-in for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. These scenes form the backbone of the film and may prove too talkative for Nolan's customary audience. That said, this is a beautifully composed and highly intelligent picture, clearly aimed at an adult audience. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it sweeps the boards at next year's Oscars.