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The mood of this film is wistfulness and regret. There are moments of the signature Nolan adventure of a vaguely outlined protagonist fighting against time and challenging odds. A film about creating the first atomic bomb could have leaned into that aspect.

However, that is not the film Nolan made. Predominately through the protagonist, Oppenheimer, whose failings as a husband, father and tactician are made clear, we experience his particular regrets and troubles through close-ups and subjective viewpoints. This is neither a pure hero narrative (his leadership at Los Alamos), nor a pure innocent victim narrative (his loss of position as his left-wing politics is used against him in the 1950s).

I watch this as a student of physics and what stands out is how much Nolan includes physicists of that time, often only in passing or as side characters that make no direct contribution to the narrative. The film begins and ends with Einstein and his troubled mood. I think these two aspects engender a subtler form of wistfulness and regret: what might science have been like if the Second World War and Nazism had not pitted these great minds against each other and made physics a tool of war rather than a means to look into the strange microscopic world? That is great filmmaking.

I cannot quite give the film full points because it spends too much time on the political maneuvers of Admiral Strauss. He is not a good antagonist and it sidetracks the narrative with themes of a one-sided political thriller.

Many Norse sagas from the 10th century and thereabouts exhibit the feature that lives of the characters are foreordained, or at least understood as such. Humans are like particles that must do what the forces that act on them require. Usually the path is set by honour, family, father-son bond, supernatural decree etc. The Norse worldview appears therefore very fatalistic and collectivist.

This contrasts with the modern story with moral agents who deliberate, struggle, then chooses an imperfect path forward. The film Gladiator is a good example of a man (and hero) who has been wronged and is on a tough, bloody yet morally righteous journey. Northman tricks the viewer to think that is the story that is about to be told after a standard setup in the beginning of the film. But that is ultimately not the kind of story that is told, especially driven home in the final act "twist".

Northman is a great attempt to capture the fatalistic Norse story, where moral facts and the good matter not when the given destiny is enacted. This does make the story somewhat alien to a modern audience. This isn't the usual adventure, revenge and redemption film. But seen through the lens of the Norse saga, it is great.

I have recently seen several "Asian gay dramas". Formula 17 is one of the best.

An observation I have made is that several of the Asian gay dramas are full of guilt. This is nothing unique to the Asian gay dramas, just think of Brokeback Mountain. But I have seen a few too many films that end in death and general misery, where the conclusion seems to be that being gay is just pain, suffering and misery. Perhaps this is a realistic description in some of the more conservative Asian societies, but if suicide is the only way out for the protagonist of the film, then that is a bad film in my opinion.

Formula 17 is a much more hopeful film. The protagonists have their struggles and problems to deal with. However, these problems are in good sense more everyday. The characters cover a wide and not too subtle spectrum of being gay, and the story is both fun and cute. Yes, it is a bit sugar coated, but why not? Also, the film offers some nice photo of Taiwan. After I saw this film, I wanted to go there.

Highly recommended, especially if you want to see a good Asian gay drama with more fun and less depression.