Tenet is the perfect quarantine movie since, let’s face it, time itself has become a flat circle. Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster puzzle-box of a film is an examination of time and perspective from the filmmaker who continues to flex the very tenets of the reality we know by layering ideas such that when audiences are pulled back and see the full canvas, they are astonished.
Tenet stars John David Washington as the unnamed “Protagonist,” a former CIA agent turned operative for the international “Tenet” organization, tasked with repossessing time-inverting devices. He is joined on this mission by Neil (Robert Pattinson) and assisted by Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), the wife of the international “inverted” arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh).
The movie concept is what we have come to expect from Nolan movies in that we don’t know what to expect other than a perfectly color-graded Rubik’s Cube. His fascination with paradox comes up on multiple occasions akin to the staircase scene in Inception. Does killing your grandpa alter the present (as in a Back to the Future disappearing photo), or do you, because you committed the act, live on as if everyone is just a piece on a board occupying a particular space in time? This makes Nolan’s choice of Washington as “The Protagonist” more telling and interesting, as (with the exception of two scenes) we exclusively follow Washington’s journey deeper into the maze of time and its capabilities. To a smaller extent, Nolan’s message seems to be that being the good guy means preserving time and space for others wherever that time and space lies.
Without spoiling any plot lines, this movie is wonderfully executed. Nolan tees up magnificent shots of cargo boats powering through the Nysted Wind Farm in Denmark played in reverse, a car-chase scene in Estonia, and a tactical assault sequence where buildings, bombs, bullets, and soldiers are simultaneously moving through and back in time such that two battles are taking place at the same time in the same space but acting on one another. It’s a tremendous cinematic feat.
The obvious flaw (artistic choice?) of the movie is the dialogue volume. In the COVID-19 era, we have grown accustomed to deciphering muffled voices behind different types of masks, but even with this newly acquired skill set, audiences will have difficulty understanding the dialogue as characters are often talking behind oxygen masks, over scratchy radios, and over another intense Nolan musical score. I have great hearing, but many times, I couldn’t understand what was said. At times, this was frustrating, and at other times, it seemed to be an artistic choice. I imagine this was intentional. Maybe watch it again with subtitles after the film goes onto streaming services.
I also took issue with how underutilized Elizabeth Debicki is in the movie. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. villain was given an unconvincing motivation to work with in Tenet — a billionaire’s wife with an eye for high art is worried about losing her son over a $9 million fraudulent sale? There’s probably a half-dozen billionaires that will accidentally commit tax fraud today. And while the snarky and tenacious Washington is a strong presence on his way to being a massive movie star like his father, Denzel, his character’s motivations seem to oscillate unevenly beyond simple protagonist complexity into the realm of overwriting the character. But perhaps these are nitpicky critiques in a movie that does so much well with such a complex idea.
Nolan superfans will be spending the coming weeks and months tearing up message boards on Reddit as to what it all means, exploring the space and time Nolan has created in his newest universe. But in an age where life has almost slowed to a standstill, there is something for all of us. Nolan breathes life into the cinema, once more giving time and space for imagination, pushing against the current, borne back and forth ceaselessly into the past, present, and future.
Tyler Grant (@TyGregoryGrant) writes movie reviews for the Washington Examiner.
