The Cinema Alcazar, a newly refurbished theater in the Tangier medina, was just a zigzag from my riad, one minute away if I remembered the right rights, lefts, and a staircase. Shuttered for decades, the theater now shows the latest in world fare subtitled in French. When Oppenheimer opened to acclaim in the U. S., so too did it fascinate Moroccans, judging by the crowds queuing up for the 7 pm screenings. The theater manager said most shows were sold out from first screening on. The next day I was there, seated between a German filmmaker and a Moroccan one who said as a kid he used to come to this theater with friends to take in Kung Fu action flicks. Now with no spare seat in sight, I wondered why the American story of Oppenheimer would be such a hit in North Africa.

The development and dropping of the atom bomb were world events, true. Christopher Nolan’s visuals are worth the price of admission. Solarized, monumental, rising plume, the testing cloud alone had his fictive viewers geared up, in sunglasses and slathered against burn for the occasion. The image—movie magic for sure– seems comical, and does not play well among descendants of New Mexicans hurt by the radiation.

A register of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s achievement, the bomb is the movie’s excuse for engaging in important themes—anti-Semitism being one, and another being betrayal. (I had just seen the sculpture of Judas kissing Christ on the façade of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.) Taking note of a brilliant performance by Robert Downey Jr. as the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Oppenheimer’s chief antagonist, I was struck by the egotism mixed with ambition, and the damage done by small men—as Nolan, basing his portrayal on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, shapes the hero/ villain narrative.

Painfully thin, the Irish actor Cillian Murphy is all cheekbones and cigarettes as Oppenheimer. With Florence Pugh as his lover Jean Tatlock, he’s the kind of man women should shun, but can’t help themselves. Emily Blunt as his wife Kitty stands by her man when he’s called into the American tribunal that frames the film’s three hours. In the end, he is stripped of his security clearances. Given that Oppenheimer created the bomb as a preventative, President Truman comes off badly here for actually using it against the Japanese. The words Pearl Harbor never come up.

Oppenheimer’s movie arc recalls portraits of other American originals, biopics formed to aggrandize incredibly flawed game changers: but only he literally blew things up. What can you do with such entertainment? The audience at Alcazar applauded wildly.