Tenet

Although not my first pilgrimage back to the biblical big screen (I'd been lucky enough to see a few classic back to back features in the weeks before - The Shining & A Clockwork Orange, and Aliens & Aliens), Christopher Nolan's Tenet certainly intends to mark the return proper of cinema, in this post-lock down world. And with that return, Nolan is tasked with a feat that Atlas holding up the heavens would baulk at: make cinema relevant in an age when for the majority of the world, the idea of getting within 1.5 metres of another individual is at best frowned upon, at worst criminal. 

Of all the directors of the 21st century, perhaps Nolan is most apt to carry this mantle, having (at least in my eyes), consistently delivered with blockbusters with brains. Whereas he has dabbled in franchise, with the greatest cinematic trilogy ever (Batman of course, don't @ me Lord of the Rings fans), he has also proven his boundless imagination with original concepts like Inception. 

And with Tenet, Nolan has created a movie similar in tone, style, and action. Unafraid to grapple huge ideas and package them into an action packed experience that should be best experienced in the cinema. With Inception, the central idea at the heart of the film was dreams, with Tenet, Nolan finally makes his preoccupation with time the raison d'être. Whereas time had previously been used as a stylistic flourish, like in Dunkirk with 3 intersecting time periods, or The Prestige where the protagonists consistently shift the story through time through reading through each other's journals, here time is everything.

Time drives the plot and may be instrumental in initiating and/or preventing something worse than World War 3, as one character grimly intones to The Protagonist (John David Washington). That's right, your protagonist for the film is nameless (not a spoiler, I promise), and is played with James Bond swagger by Washington, equally at home in tactical gear assaulting escaping an opera siege, or cracking skulls with a multitude of blunt instruments in a kitchen beat down. Nolan is often touted as a natural fit for the director of a Bond movie (his snowbound finale in Inception is clearly a homage to the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service) and in Washington he has found his Bond. Dashing, charming, inhabits a tailor made suit with ease, and with a few snappy one liners:  this could be his audition tape for the role. 

He's tasked by a shadowy organisation to stop something worse than World War 3 occurring that has something to do with time and Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in scenery chewing form, with an outrageous Russian growl of an accent). To say what Sator is actually up to would spoil much of the fun of the film but to be honest, I think, after only one run through the film, I struggle greatly in giving you a precise breakdown of exactly what happened and why. With films dabbling in time and similar concepts, I think some amount of head scratching is acceptable, and half of the fun is in trying to assemble the puzzle pieces when it feels like the jigsaw is actively fighting against you: just when you think you've snapped a component into place, the ground shifts and a new mystery is revealed. After the film, the topic of conversation with friends after was not about the marvellous action set pieces but instead engaging in this game of working it out. 

However, another good deal of that conversation was also taken up with the unfortunate conclusion that the sound isn't (or simply wasn't in the screening we saw) mixed very well. Frequent Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer is nowhere to be found (being tied up doing the score for Dune) and in is Ludwig Goransson doing a spot on impression, although leaning more into electronics than Zimmer. The score is fantastic, however when it is nearly ever present, and pounding at the same volume or higher than crucial dialogue, whole chunks of plot can be lost in the mix. Part of the villainous motivation of one faction was completely lost by my group at the cinema and only learnt by doing a Google search after (the motivations are actually really quite good). The nadir of this is an expository scene that takes place on a speeding catamaran, on the high seas, with the soundtrack pounding, and the characters communicating through muffled headsets. There's even scenes where they have to wear fashion accessory of the year face masks and exposit! Nolan just about got away with it with Bane but here he's less successful. 

Coupled with this is a sense, particularly in the first half of the movie, that things are simply moving too fast. Our Protagonist meets with a Q like figure (Clemence Poesy) Laura early who apparently explains complex time concepts, which our Protagonist more or less takes on face value. However, the nuance of this concept feels half explained at this point, and it doesn't help that the writer's themselves didn't seem sold on explaining it fully in this scene, handwaving away any concrete explanations with a "Don't think too much about it" like line. 

However, by just over the midway point, things suddenly click together in a wonderfully extended set piece the sets out Nolan's stall as to what this movie is all about in such a gloriously inventive way, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. A tense standoff between parties, where you go in as confused as one and emerge with a crystal clear sense of how the world works. A perfect melding of high octane action and plot, shot with precision, all the pieces suddenly click into place. The film only stumbles again in the lead up to the final action set piece where again exposition as to the nitty gritty details of the conflict comes a little too thick and fast (although remember, this is also being potentially buried further by dodgy sound mixing), and again I felt like I was struggling to keep up with the mechanics of the plot. 

The action across the film is, however can never said to be anything but clear, with Nolan sticking to his mantra of getting things done with practical effects where possible. Nearly each set piece could easily slot itself at the end of a high ranking Bond film and you'd be satisfied. From an opening thrilling opera siege, to truly unique brutal brawls, the film sets the bar for action for the year, which No Time to Die is likely to struggle against.

With the plot leaving a little to be desired with clarity, it would be useful for Nolan to use an emotional through-line for us to follow. In Inception, even if you struggle with the dream logic, you at least know that Leonardo DiCaprio's end goal is to buy himself freedom to get back to his family. Unfortunately, as is a common complaint with Nolan's films, the majority of the characters are more chess pieces than fully formed characters. The Protagonist is probably the worst example of this, with no discernible character arc, other than a greater understanding the world around him and his place in it. His goal is simply to get the job done. 

Opposite him, and with more personality is Robert Pattinson, playing a louche, foppish spy named Neil. The banter between Pattinson and Washington is frequently entertaining, and Pattinson commits himself to the action, in an encouraging sign for his upcoming role as Batman (although, that recent trailer really should put to bed any doubts as to this anyway). Similar to the Protagonist, Neil too, is for the most part, little more than a game piece to move the plot along, although both characters have hidden aspects that become apparent as the film reaches a crescendo. 

Perhaps though neither the Protagonist nor Neil are meant to have the emotional heart of the film, as the character who undertakes the most emotional growth of the film really belongs to Elizabeth Debicki's Kat - estranged wife to Sator. Kat's character is very much a classic Bondian trope: the mistress of the villain, longing for an escape, seeks assistance from a charming interloper. What Nolan could have done to really twist the knife of the emotional stakes in her relationship was to flesh out her relationship with Sator - why did she ever seek solace in the arms of this monster? We will never know, as we never see any other side of Sator other than his barbarous side, and this makes Kat's journey less nuanced than it could be. Still, Debicki sells the role, and the machinations of her journey over the course of the film are never less than engaging. 

And again, this is likely the largest problem of the film: it engages intellectually, visually. It gets the blood pumping, and the heart racing but only through thrills, rarely in emotion. Inception managed to marry the emotion the plot in a way that Tenet doesn't seem as interested in doing. Despite this, I am eager to see it again, as the film challenges you to keep up. The characters in the film are trying to stop something worse than WW3 from happening - Nolan is trying to stop a relatively similar terminal crisis: the death of cinema as we know it. Will Tenet be successful is getting people back to the cinema? Only time will tell.