Oppenheimer, flawed genius

Oppenheimer is based on a Pulitzer-winning biography by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin called American Prometheus

No one was surprised when Oppenheimer, the riveting movie on the life of the American theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, swept the Academy Awards with seven gongs. That’s a pretty good showing but not a record — Ben Hur, the 1959 Charlton Heston starrer blockbuster, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King of 2003 won 11 Oscars each in their time.

Catty Hollywood suggested that the movie received disproportionate accolade because: (a) it resonated politically (accomplished scientist bullied by a conservative establishment); (b) it rode, per Ryan Gosling, who plays Ken in the box office hit Barbie