Oppenheimer’s Family Likes the Movie, Save for One Scene
There was only one scene of Nolan’s film that Oppenheimer’s family says may not have been quite accurate. Overall, they quite liked the film, but the scene where Oppenheimer injects an apple with a toxic substance, intending that his professor, they felt, would not have happened. Oppenheimer’s grandson Charles told Time Magazine, “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 head that during his life and considered it to be true.” The Pulitzer-prize winning book American Prometheus, which served as the basis for Nolan’s movie, reflects on the apple incident as reflecting on Oppenheimer’s unhappiness at Cambridge. The book also notes if it were true, the substance would likely not have been poisonous, as it would have ended with attempted murder charges, or worse (for Oppenheimer), expulsion.
