In Defense of Tenet

*NO SPOILERS* Why must I defend Tenet?

Because of the Box Office. In early September 2020, after several months of delay and existential anguish regarding the shrinking role that movie theaters hold in culture, Christopher Nolan’s original thriller Tenet premiered in American movie theaters. Despite exceeding its budget worldwide, its American box office returns were a historic low for a film that cost $200 million to make, which was the latest chapter in an ongoing public saga between Nolan and Warner Brothers; Nolan publicly pushed the film into theaters despite a fair amount of backlash, criticizing WB along the way. I’m not sure if he was right or wrong, but this movie’s “failure” at the box office compared to its expectations caused a Bond film and several superhero films to push back their own releases, leading to streamers trying to craft hybrid deals in terms of theatrical release vs. at-home availability. Now that ScarJo has sued Disney over the Black Widow release, these deals could potentially be re-configured. Just something to keep an eye on.

Because of Contemporary Reviews. Tenet also received the most mixed critical and audience reviews among Nolan’s films since The Prestige – which I know some people consider among his very best – so audiences were torn about whether the risk to see this film in theaters in a pandemic was even worth it. For those of us who did give it a chance, we found something that refused to explain except where absolutely necessary, intentionally disorienting audiences until its final moments. In the age of Marvel films where people are constantly explaining concepts and motivations, this kind of disorientation and intellectual challenge can be off-putting. The sound is also mixed to have the music and action blasting loud and the critical but barebones expositional dialogue playing low. It’s edited within an inch of its life, complicated in its spy/espionage plotting, complicated in its sci-fi/time “travel” plotting, which leads to very complicated sequences that unfold onscreen with small details flying by at great speeds, sometimes in reverse. If that sounds interesting and you haven’t seen it yet, go do so then return. If you need to be told why it’s worth your time before you do, read on but then fire it up on HBO Max.

*NO SPOILERS* Why Tenet is Great

Because We Need Nolan. There are people out there who think that Nolan is the best filmmaker alive, and while I disagree, the man hasn’t made a bad film. There is, however, a legitimate argument to make that he is among the 5 most well-known filmmakers, whose name alone carries a brand for storytelling. He made a superhero trilogy whose thematic heights haven’t been matched by Marvel (except in one case), he’s made several original films that are widely beloved, and he made the best war film of the past decade – and ruled the box office with positive critical reviews just about every time. Before Thanos, Infinity Stones, and Multi-verses dominated whatever “water cooler” talk is now, we debated what the wobbly top at the end of Inception meant, and what happened in the black hole in Interstellar. This film leaves the door open for such debates, not just in the reveal of its final moments, but in every action scene in which someone inverts. The fact that a studio gave Nolan $200 million is a terrific sign that the extended universes haven’t completely suffocated big-budget original storytelling, but the conversation around this film’s financial results might mean we may not see that again, which is a shame. In an age of conglomerate-driven entertainment vehicles meant to serve a larger universe as opposed to individual entries, we need someone with the brains, guts, and skills that Nolan possesses to blow our minds in blockbuster storytelling done his way.

Because There Are Several Ways to Watch It. Let’s go back to a time when there was no pandemic, and potentially fewer Disney properties for Tenet to compete with; it would have been released, potentially had a stronger critical reception since critics wouldn’t consider it a lethal threat to travel to a movie theater, and some buzzy word of mouth over this crazy story. People would go back to the theaters to try and understand all the time-shifting in the action scenes, looking for multiple versions of characters based on who’s inverted and when, and sort out the brilliant puzzle each of the large action set-pieces contain. They’d also start to untangle the spy/espionage plot that drives the film, but once they’ve mastered both elements, they might return just to see this dynamite spectacle on the big screen. Nolan’s practical way of shooting action helps his films stand the test of time, while bringing his current audiences into the movie in a way that feels different than the standard blockbuster fare. Ludwig Goransson’s pounding score would rock them in their seats time and time again, and the legitimate movie stars of John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Elizabeth Debicki carry the moments between the bonkers and propulsive action scenes; at a base level, this is mass entertainment done right.

Back in the real world, I might have seen Tenet more than anyone; I saw it in a theater with my roommate, then he and I bought it on Amazon Prime to show it to my fiancée, then I showed it to my parents when I visited, then my fiancée showed it to her parents when she and I visited, and then again with her because we both loved it and there was still no vaccine – so I’ve more or less sorted the time stuff out. What will bring me back in the future is the near-unmatched spectacle Nolan and his team conjure up. To take the movie’s own advice, I’ll just feel it instead of think about it too much, and it feels amazing. There are action scenes in which some actors move forwards and some backwards while fighting each other, and then sometimes the film will be played in reverse depending on whose perspective we are following. Whether I want to try and understand how the spectacle was made (which is fun) or sit back and let the spectacle wash over me (which is incredible) or dig into the plot/time inversion mechanics (which is rewarding), I’m gonna have a good time. While this movie is, barring a few thoughts about fate, escapist nonsense, it’s captured my imagination and will bring me back in a way that very little of the rest of today’s escapist nonsense will.

*SPOILERS* Why Else Tenet is Great

Because of Nolan’s Reveals. Just like in The Prestige, Memento, and less successfully in Interstellar, this film’s meaning only truly snaps into focus in the closing moments. The disorientation that Nolan held us in for most of the movie fades away in a moment of brilliant clarity: Neil has known the Protagonist for many years, and they’ve undertaken many missions together, but his journey will end when he saves the Protagonist’s life down in the tunnel. From the Protagonist’s point of view, his journey and their friendship has only just begun. Every decent time travel movie raises the question of fate while managing to avoid falling into too many tricky plot holes and paradoxes. Neil’s, and ultimately Nolan’s, repeated mantra through the movie is “what’s happened, happened”. The final time that Neil utters those words as he walks towards his death, they ring out as a bittersweet send-off to a beloved character while tying off the knot on what the hell happened here.

The Protagonist will now spend the rest of his life making sure that the events we saw play out onscreen play out exactly as they did, which includes recruiting Neil and founding the organization of Tenet. This was the critical moment for all of humanity, and what’s happened, happened. Now, he is compelled to ensure that it will happen exactly this way. The first 45 minutes of this film feel like the Protagonist is being shepherded from location to location by people, including Neil, who know more about what’s really going on than what they say – this is all by design. The same disorientation the Protagonist feels is shared by us, making the audience an active participant in the movie’s plot and emotion. On re-watch, these first 45 minutes fly by because Nolan thought ahead to when we would revisit the film and wanted to get us to the fun stuff as soon as possible without losing any complexity. At the same time, we more fully appreciate the depth and wit of the performances surrounding our Protagonist.

I won’t call this movie perfect, as what I just described does feel like he bit of more than he could chew, the sound mixing is an intentional stylish choice that doesn’t quite land, and there’s a ceiling in terms of artistic merit for stuff like this. However, for what this movie is – an espionage thriller dunked in Nolan’s time-travel secret sauce – I love that it’s in my life, and that joy is compounded by the fact that mass entertainment is looking less and less like this with each passing year. “We live in a twilight world” is a code phrase used early in the film that also symbolizes the movie’s own embrace of confusion and distortion instead of perfect clarity in its plotting. The real twilight, however, is the fading presence of original and non-franchise blockbusters; yet against the encroaching darkness, movies like this shine even more beautifully.