Christopher Nolan is part of a dying breed in Hollywood. In the age of sequels and franchises, he is one of the few remaining filmmakers who can sell a blockbuster to audiences on name recognition alone. (To be fair, it took a superhero franchise to get him there.) His latest release, last summer’s Tenet, is everything you would expect from the writer-director, for better or worse: it’s ambitious, grand, operatic, and perhaps not as clever as it thinks it is. For all its faults, spare some appreciation for a filmmaker whose clout allows him to take risks with a billion dollars on the line. Ardent Nolan lovers and apologists will find much to enjoy in this ambitious spectacle. Nolan skeptics will be understandably disappointed and frustrated. As many have noted online, Tenet isn’t the best Nolan movie, but it is the most Nolan movie.
Nolan was once culturally untouchable, thanks to his one-two punch of The Dark Knight and Inception. The mixed reception of his filmography since has left him much more vulnerable to objective criticism. (Look, no one wanted to love The Dark Knight Rises more than I did.) Tenet teased itself as a spiritual sequel to Inception, a broadly appealing, successful piece of popcorn entertainment. Nolan’s dream heist spectacle had the perfect blend of action and faux-sophistication; the high-concept is complex enough to engage the brain, but not too philosophical to overwhelm the whiz-bang set pieces. However, Tenet might be remembered as Nolan jumping the shark. There’s plenty of interesting ideas here, but they’re harder to track underneath a convoluted and confusing story. Normally, Nolan’s refusal to spoon-feed the audience is a strength, but with Tenet, we need a little more mush.
In many ways the plot is spoiler-proof because it’s difficult to articulate what exactly happens. I’ll be honest, after three viewings, I still don’t quite understand the plot mechanics. It’s not as accessible as the internal logic of Inception (but does probably hold up better under scrutiny). You still shouldn’t worry about being completely baffled for the entirety of its 150-minute runtime. There’s a distinct moment when the movie really clicks into place, frankly steering it from becoming an unredeemable mess. As the time-bending mechanics are further explored, Nolan’s creativity is on full display. We revisit earlier sequences in reverse and Nolan recontextualizes much of the movie in satisfying fashion.
A looming (and fair) criticism against the film is its sound mixing. Ideally a movie should be able to convey its story purely with its visuals. There have been exercises where classic movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark are presented as silent films, and the plot remains remarkably clear. The sound design of Tenet continues a Nolan trend of emphasizing sound effects and musical score over dialog. (Shout out to a thrilling score by Ludwig Göransson.) Compounding this problem, the exposition isn’t always delivered in the clearest way. Nolan seems to address this directly in the film itself. Before explaining the central time-bending conceit of the film, a scientist advises our hero, “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” She might as well be looking right at the camera to deliver her line. Even with that advice, it’s embarrassing how much clearer the story is when revisited with subtitles. I suddenly understood why certain scenes flowed from one to another—or who exactly a pronoun was referring to in an important conversation—in a way that absolutely eluded me on first viewing. Subtitles should complement a film, not be a requirement to understand the basic plot.
Nolan has been ‘experimenting’ with his sound mixing for over a decade, fiddling more and more with each successive release post-Inception. Early complaints of The Dark Knight Rises led Nolan to re-mix Tom Hardy’s dialog as the oft-impersonated Bane. The result is a front-loaded sound mix, so that in otherwise normal dialog conversations, Bane’s voice towers over the others. You’d think Hardy was sitting next to you, booming directly into your ear. Two years later, audiences were similarly frustrated with Nolan’s science fiction exploration, Interstellar. Many complained that important dialog was drowned out by Hans Zimmer’s propulsive (and majestic) organ score. Critics were silent on this issue for Nolan’s previous entry, Dunkirk, likely because the film has minimal dialog and intentionally relies on the visuals and throbbing sound design to consume and thrill you.
But there must be some good things about Tenet, right? Regardless of the criticisms on execution, several elements deserve praise. Nolan continues his insistence on shooting on actual film over digital and capturing as many practical effects in camera as possible. The action sequences are thrilling and kinetic, and will age beautifully because we are watching actual stunt work and pyrotechnics. Nolan also arranged another cast of heavy hitters. John David Washington’s (literal) Protagonist is a compelling and refreshingly unconventional leading man. Kenneth Branagh delightfully chews scenery, taking his own advice from his time on Thor to bathe in “the river of ham”. The scene-stealing MVP of the movie is Robert Pattinson’s Neil. Not since Matthew McConaughey has an actor so thoroughly reclaimed his own star persona. Pattinson continues to be one of the most fascinating performers of his generation. Pattinson is insanely watchable, exuding wit and charisma whenever onscreen.
We have to mention the bizarre pressure and narrative around Tenet’s release to “save” the 2020 summer blockbuster season. There was always going to be buzz around a new Nolan release, but Tenet’s legacy may be leading the charge to reopen theaters last summer. It’s debatable how much of Tenet’s theatrical release was pushed by Nolan or by Warner Brothers executives, or what positive or negative effect it had on theater chains’ survival during the pandemic—but we can agree that the efforts were a bust. We’re left to speculate what the conversation (and box office receipts) might have been around Tenet in a pandemicless year.
Will Tenet be remembered among the most important films of the 21st century, or even Nolan’s own canonical “must watch” works? Hardly. Nolan should rightly be criticized for the misses in Tenet, lest he continue indulging his worst tendencies. But let’s remember that big swings (even with their attendant misses) are a hell of a lot better than the tepid, safe, insecure fare that often meets us at the cineplex. Tenet is a technical achievement that should still be experienced on as big a screen as you can find. Just remember to keep those subtitles on.
Did you love Tenet‘s spectacle and bold story? Did you roll your eyes at Nolan’s incoherent mess of a movie? Is time a relative construct, and are our attempts to understand and control it a damning example of our hubris? Sound off and let me know in the comments!
Tenet is currently available to rent on Amazon Prime and Google Play. It runs 150 minutes and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some suggestive references, and brief strong language.
