Tenet (2020)
“I’ll see you in the beginning, friend.” - Neil
Tenet (2020)
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh
Anyone that has seen a Christopher Nolan movie (Interstellar, Inception, Dunkirk) knows that he loves three things – exploring the concept of ‘time’, a powerful musical score, and epic set pieces. Therefore it’ll come as no surprise that his latest film, Tenet, is a mind-bending, fast-paced time-travel thriller with stunning visuals and an enigmatic cast.
The movie follows the unnamed ‘Protagonist’ (Washington – Denzel’s son!), a CIA agent who gets dragged into the mysterious world of Tenet – a secret organization that deals with ‘temporal espionage’. That is, they are spies that operate across time itself. When Tenet discovers objects that exhibit ‘inverted entropy’ (allows the objects to move backwards through time), the Protagonist and a local contact, Neil (Pattinson), must stop a Russian oligarch Andrei (Branagh) from harnessing this power and starting a new World War.
I’m a big Nolan fan, and he uses his classic blueprint once again to produce an entertaining movie. The set pieces and action scenes are incredible (filmed across 7 different countries), the acting is good (Pattinson was so good it might lead to a bit of a career renaissance for him), the obligatory Michael Caine cameo was fun, and the music was so overpowering I thought it was another Hans Zimmer score (apologies to composer Ludwig Göransson who was Zimmer’s stand-in for this film). However, Nolan went ‘Full-Nolan’ here and made the plot borderline impossible to follow.
I love time-travel films, and even those that use the concept of ‘time’ as a framework for the plot (such as in Dunkirk and Inception). Bonus points for movies that take the time to explore time travel paradoxes and how the past affects the future (i.e. Terminator, Back to The Future, Predestination, Looper). Tenet does this, but it’s just too complicated. So complicated that every second of the dialogue in the movie is dedicated to explaining it. You can’t fault Nolan for lack of detail – he took four years to write the script and leant on the expertise of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne (who helped on Interstellar). Therefore as a viewer you are constantly getting hit over the head with complex scientific concepts, and then spend most of the next action scene trying to process this information. It’s worth noting that Nolan uses Neil as a narrator of sorts, and he is meant to simplify these concepts for the viewer while explaining things to the Protagonist, but it’s still bloody confusing. On the plus side, it’ll make you think (and potentially this movie goes on to become a cult classic that is incredibly rewatchable due to this complexity) but on a first watch it’s almost distracting.
Another annoying Nolan trope that rears its ugly head is main character’s wearing masks while talking (a la Tom Hardy in literally every Nolan film). This, combined with some questionable sound mixing, means you can barely hear a word of dialogue for the first ten minutes of the movie, or during the final action sequence. It’s the equivalent of watching Donnie Darko but someone has put it on mute for the first ten minutes and Jake Gyllenhaal is wearing a motorbike helmet for some reason - you’re going to struggle to catch up.
There’s some fun casting in this. Washington is a believable cool secret agent, Pattinson is SO likeable you’ll forgive him for his Twilight transgressions, and Kenneth Branagh taps into his ‘evil russian villain’ character (also seen in Jack Ryan). You also get some fun support from Himesh Patel (recently in Yesterday) and Clémence Poésy (who starred alongside Pattinson as Fleur Delacour in Harry Potter 4).
There are some clear red flags with the complexity of Tenet, but in all honesty it’s incredibly entertaining, the action sequences are all great, the cinematography is stunning, and Washington and Pattinson provide a very likeable and charming duo to get behind. I’d recommend this to anyone, but this isn’t the sort of movie you can just “chuck on in the background” – you’ll need to pay attention.
Rating: 7/10