Realism with “Oppenheimer”, or escapism with “Barbie”?

THEY MAKE an intriguing pair of rivals: he in a dark suit and porkpie hat, she in a gingham dress and matching hair bow. His domain is a vast scientific-research facility in New Mexico; hers is a fluorescent-pink party house with a slide. J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy, an Irish actor) spends his days corralling the finest scientific minds in America to create a nuclear bomb—work a colleague calls “the most important fucking thing to ever happen in the history of the world”. Barbie (played by Margot Robbie, an Australian actress) may seem like she has the perfect life, but she has existential worries too. Do her friends and fellow dolls, she wonders, “ever think about dying?”

No recent movie matchup has been as eagerly awaited as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”. Released on July 21st in America and Britain, the two films will serve as a test of whether viewers can be coaxed off their couches to return to cinemas. The incongruity in the films’ subject and tone has delighted the internet. People have created memes, remixed the trailers into jarring “Barbenheimer” hybrids and debated whether to see the biographical drama or the fantasy comedy first.