J. Robert Oppenheimer's Grandson Calls Out Film's Controversial Scene all-available
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Moviegoers this summer have made a big event out of seeing the Barbie and Oppenheimer double-feature, nicknamed Barbenheimer, with many sharing how much they loved seeing both.
But there’s someone who has strong mixed feelings over the Christopher Nolan-helmed biopic about the physicist who created the atomic bomb: J. Robert Oppenheimer‘s grandson, Charles.
The 48-year-old got candid in a Q&A with TIME, saying he was “bracing myself to not feeling great about it.” Upon seeing the film, he found himself “accepting and liking it,” praising its “compelling story.” However, there was one scene that he liked the least, in which Oppenheimer injects an apple that’s on his college professor’s desk with cyanide.
It was a moment taken from the biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, though in the book, its authors Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin make sure to note there’s no clear evidence that the then-student tried to kill his professor.
Charles noted, “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.”
He noted that there’s no clear understanding of where the story even came from, saying, “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.”
However, even though it painted his grandfather in a far more sinister light than how the family remembers him, Charles isn’t troubled by the inclusion of the scene in question.
“Sometimes facts get dragged through a game of telephone. In the movie, it’s treated vaguely and you don’t really know what’s going on unless you know this incredibly deep backstory. So it honestly didn’t bother me. It bothers me that it was in the biography with that emphasis, not a disclaimer of, this is an unsubstantiated rumor that we want to put in our book to make it interesting,” he said.
Next: ‘Oppenheimer’ Viewer Spots Error in Pivotal Scene: ‘I’ll Be That Guy’
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