Wow, what can I say about Tenet? It’s the black sheep of Christopher Nolan’s filmography, but despite its glaring flaws, it’s one of the most inventive time travel movies I’ve ever seen. It is, among other things, bold filmmaking, not least because the powers that be endeavored to release it theatrically in 2020. It’s evident why Tenet ranks lower among the acclaimed director’s titles, but I will always ardently defend it.
Tenet follows an intelligence agent known only as “The Protagonist” (John David Washington), who is recruited by a mysterious organization to prevent a technology from the future from starting World War III, or destroying humanity altogether. These people of tomorrow, who are never seen, have figured out how to invert the temporal makeup of an object or person so that they move backwards through time; to the regular observer moving forward through time, it appears that these things and people are literally moving backwards, even speaking in reverse.
This is obviously the kind of visual fodder that allows Nolan to piercingly demonstrate his directorial mastery, with the particular mind-bendiness of the Inception era. You get car chases where vehicles are driving backwards and reforming from a crash, bullets that are sucked back into a gun, hand-to-hand combat that simply shouldn’t work. Some fun time-travel twists reveal who a faceless person was all along, as characters go back weeks in time before reversing directions, layering their journey several ways.
Neil (Robert Pattinson), a suave agent whose loyalties are also unclear, shows up in the first act to help with the mission (and to humbly suggest they crash a plane). The Protagonist infiltrates the inner circle of Sator (Kenneth Branagh), an arms dealer who is the point of contact of the antagonistic group from the future. But he also develops a connection with Sator’s wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), becoming determined to help her escape the abusive marriage with custody of her son.
This leads up to a final act where no one watching has any idea what’s going on, but it all seems to work out, and it sure looks cool. Most of Nolan’s films get confusing in the final act, but Tenet and Inception have it worst with all their complex pseudo-physics. However, in Inception, the confusion and ambiguity are the point, while Tenet is framed as coming to a tidy ending that the characters understand, leaving us all in the dust.
Tenet has impeccable style, and by nature, its plot invites philosophical ponderings, even if the dialogue doesn’t do more than touch upon it. Major queries include: How does the grandfather paradox work, or is it even important if you are fighting for your life? At what point do the alterations made via time travel take effect? What kind of ego do you need to have to actually destroy the world? “Some men just want to watch the world burn,” says Michael Caine in a widespread meme (but I can assure you that The Joker’s raison d’être does not explain Sator).
However, Tenet can’t escape how new characters and concepts come and go with no rhyme or reason. Caine is also in this movie for one scene, playing basically another Alfred-esque character (some intelligence connection or other). Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour from Harry Potter) actually gives a memorable turn in another one-scene performance as the scientist who gets to explain the time travel mechanics. Himesh Patel and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are also both here, but it took me a long time to realize that. If you manage to find the main characters at all compelling, it’s probably because of the acting rather than the writing.
Washington and Pattinson are standouts and have a great dynamic as the stoic Protagonist and the cheekier agent he gets paired with, though they are equally consummate professionals. The narrative alludes to years of adventures and inside jokes between the two, and the actors manage to convey that emotional attachment. The believability of it is especially impressive given how, from The Protagonist’s perspective, he met Neil only recently. Yet I am admittedly partial to Pattinson between the two, because this movie converted me into a die-hard fan of his. Enigmatic, witty, and delivering Tenet’s most important thematic dialogue while half asleep, Neil is an underrated action hero.
This is a distinctive role for Branagh, unleashing him as this brute of a villain. Meanwhile, Debicki’s Kat is structurally confined to being a damsel for The Protagonist to rescue, but she has a subtle arc of her own of realizing how far she is willing to go; how she becomes the “vengeful bitch” who will shoot first and ask questions later for her son and her own freedom. She finds another connection to The Protagonist in this regard, who discovers exactly what kind of power he has to protect what he holds dear.
All in all, Pattinson and Elliot Page are absolutely the two most exciting actor-director reunions happening in The Odyssey, and I would love to see Washington work with Nolan again someday. Tenet rushes by its weightiest points with the same speed as the rest of its muddy plot, but there is something to it all about taking control, if you have the grit and smarts to make use of the tools you are given.
Tenet
2020
dir. Christopher Nolan
150 min.
Screens (on 70mm!) Wednesday, 7/15, 7:00pm @ Coolidge Corner Theatre
Part of the repertory series: Spielberg x Nolan
