Oppenheimer is riding quite high at the moment. Christopher Nolan got his much deserved Oscar for Best Director and Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. got their well deserved praise as well. Oppenheimer was far from a perfect film, hence Florence Pugh’s character, Jean Tatlock. On paper, bringing in the accomplished actor was a great idea. Pugh is an extremely talented up-and-comer who has showcased her diverse skills in Midsommar and Little Women.
The actress should’ve easily been nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but the problem was that her characters was terribly under developed. There’s plenty of pieces that fit within Oppenheimer, but Jean Tatlock would’ve been best if she was left on the cutting room floor. Her characters was one of demonstrations that Oppenheimer was a flawed human being, but it actually did more harm than good for the feature overall.
Jean Tatlock’s Introduction
To be clear, I’m not stated that Oppenheimer is a terrible film. For a three-hour feature, it surprisingly moves pretty quickly and the events of watching the atomic bomb being built is quite fascinating. Though there’s only one scene that shows the bomb going off, Nolan does a masterful job of documenting the turmoil and conspiracy over the bomb. However, ht biggest issue is that there’s so much focus on the court room scenes and the building of the bomb in general, that the development of Jean Tatlock felt short changed.
The introduction of the character itself is quite fine. Her and Oppenheimer have a nice meet-cute before things get steamy inside of the bedroom. However, the events that follow feel disjointed. That’s because Jean presents herself as a loving and brilliant individual who values Oppenheimer’s intellectual. Perhaps the huge red flag was that she was willing to jump into bed so quickly with a man she barely knew. But we need more than easter eggs on how much Jean impacted Oppenheimer. The character felt like an important piece in Oppenheimer’s life, but her death rang hollow before she barely got to know her character in the film.
Why She Lacked Dimension
We don’t see much of the dynamics of their relationship. When it turns out that she’s an emotional detached woman who despises the sweet advances of Oppenheimer, it feels forced. We mostly hear about their relationship through their conversation. We don’t spend intimate time with them outside of the bedroom much. That’s why it’s so jarring why Jean seemingly has this hatred for Oppenheimer’s kind gestures.
It’s also head scratching on why Oppenheimer keeps dealing with a woman who just sees him as a warm body. On the surface, these types of toxic relationships do exist. In fact, it would’ve been nice to more of Jean’s psyche about life in general. Is she scarred by her past relationships? It would example why she’s so attached to Oppenheimer despite not liking his romantic gestures.
Is there some past trauma in Oppenheimer’s life that keeps him going back to a woman that’s no good for him? We needed more focus on the relationship at hand, instead Nolan simply moved onto Kitty too quickly. I understand that Jean still played an important role in his next relationship, but we never see how these broke down between him and Jean. Nor do we see how things rekindled between the two. The lack of understanding of the relationship just made Florence Pugh’s character feel pointless.
Why Jean’s Death Lacked Any True Substance
We understood that Jean was a troubled individual. However, Nolan didn’t give us much time to connect with her as a human being. She was likable in one scene, whereas the rest she came off terribly. This has nothing to do with Florence Pugh’s performance between the actress did the best that she could. And there is a way Jean inner demons could’ve worked. She’s a two dimension character because we see different sides of her, but she lacks the third dimension because there’s not a balance between the two.
She’s simply unlikeable after the first scene. However, there’s been plenty of deplorable characters in film that has struck an emotional chord with audiences. The connection comes with the fact that her demons are never developed beyond surface level. We never understand the “why” of most of her behavior. It goes back to my previous statement that we needed to spend some time understanding her psyche. Jean Tatlock had all of the elements of a compelling character, but the lack of proper structure for her arc was severely missing.
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