Netflix's new Oppenheimer-wannabe documentary falls frustratingly short of the mark

After the smash-hit success of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer comes Einstein and the Bomb. Netflix’s new film is an obvious attempt to capitalise on the current public interest in the Atomic Age and the scientists who brought it about. Unfortunately, it offers very little insight on the subject, instead coming across as a lazy effort to jump aboard an already-rolling bandwagon.

Einstein and the Bomb is a dramatised documentary – the kind that used to be bread-and-butter for the History Channel before it became more interested in aliens and conspiracy theories. The story is framed around Einstein’s arrival in England after being forced to flee Nazi Germany, and his time spent living in a small hut in the Norfolk countryside. These sequences are based entirely on Einstein’s real words. The film’s only redeeming feature is that it’s genuinely interesting to hear the man himself opining on subjects like his secular Jewish identity, internationalism and his utter contempt for the Nazis. Sadly, these words are delivered by Irish actor Aidan McArdle, doing a cod-German accent while wearing a distractingly terrible wig.

Coming in at just over an hour, the doc runs into the same problem that every fictional portrayal of Albert Einstein faces: he is so well-known to us, his appearance is so ingrained in the popular consciousness, that any attempt to recreate him becomes a caricature. The situation isn’t helped by a script full of heavily expositional dialogue and repetitive shots of the great physicist standing around looking sad.

Despite being called Einstein and the Bomb, the film only addresses his involvement in the development of atomic weapons in its final 20 minutes, as he was barred from working on Oppenheimer's infamous Manhattan Project. The film instead draws heavily on a letter Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt, urging the United States to begin its own uranium research program. It’s true that he expressed regret for this letter later in his life, insisting he would never have written it if he’d known the Germans wouldn’t succeed in making their own atomic bomb, but the attempt to force an Oppenheimer-style reckoning feels forced.

The re-enactments also end up feeling superfluous considering most of the film is made up of archive footage and photographs. In fact, a major issue with the film is its lack of focus – it doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be a drama about Einstein the man; a documentary about the rise of the Nazis; a whistle-stop tour through World War II, or a study of the birth of the Atomic Age. In the end, it tries to be all of these things and ends up being none.

Einstein and the Bomb doesn’t really know what it wants to say or how it wants to say it. The result is a film that feels cheap, confusing and shallow.

By Barney Pell Scholes

Einstein and the Bomb is available to stream on Netflix now. netflix.com