‘Oppenheimer’ to feature nudity, sex in departure for Nolan
In films like “Interstellar,” “Inception,” and his “Batman” trilogy, writer-director Christopher Nolan has explored the farthest reaches of earth and space.
From Gotham City to inside other people’s dreams, one might think that Nolan has left few territories uncharted, but the upcoming “Oppenheimer” will see his actors going where few Nolan characters have gone before — the bedroom.
Starring Cillian Murphy, Nolan’s biopic of the man who invented the atomic bomb during WWII is one of this summer’s most anticipated blockbusters alongside “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”
Murphy, a six-time Nolan alum best known for his work in BBC’s “Peaky Blinders,” will take on the titular role — and take off his pants, according to reports.
While Nolan himself recently told Wired magazine that early viewers have left screenings “devastated,” many online have been less surprised by the film’s subject matter than the news that Nolan is not only allowing his characters to have sex — he’s indulging audiences with more than a little bit of bare flesh.
“Oppenheimer” will reportedly feature “prolonged full nudity” between Murphy and Pugh — who plays Oppenheimer’s former fiancée — “as well as sex.”
The director is known for his mind-bending blockbusters, but one outlet recently called his approach to romance “antiseptic.” In Nolan’s 25-year career, only an “implied sex scene” in “The Dark Knight Rises” and a dead body on an autopsy table in “Insomnia” have ventured into either the salacious or the graphic, according to in-the-know fans and critics.
Some Nolanistas are having a field day with the steamy “Oppenheimer” update, wondering what a no-parts-blurred sex scene from a director who’s supposedly never shot one might look like.
“I’m worried Christopher Nolan didn’t know what sex is
I’m worried Christopher Nolan didn’t know what sex is and he had the actors stand naked pressing their thumbs to each others foreheads,” one catty armchair critic mused on social media.
Another jokingly compared the ubiquitous “multi-million dollar marketing” of “Barbie” to the advertising pitch from the “Oppenheimer” team: “Cillian Murphy looking miserable, as well as sex.”
It comes as no surprise, given Nolan’s history, that some users are taking an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it approach to reports of R-rated moments.
“Knowing Nolan he’ll sprinkle a dash of making out with a teaspoon of moaning and call it a day,” a social media user with some knowledge of the director’s aversion to all things hot and heavy wrote.
As well as fully-nude scenes between Murphy and Pugh, there will also allegedly be a “heavy” moment between Murphy’s Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt, his movie wife.
This behavior not only marks a career first for Nolan regarding nudity, but also diverges from his traditional treatment of a protagonist’s female love interest as a beautiful, secondary character who more often than not either dies prior to the start of the film or meets her end during the runtime.
This pattern is so common in Nolan’s work that one outlet even published a satirical piece in 2020 purporting to “rank” the late leading ladies in Nolan’s filmography.
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