Gautam Anand
No modern Hollywood director enjoys the kind of celebrity that Christopher Nolan does. His films are not just films; they are more like major celestial events that occur every three years. Not surprisingly, all his films since ‘Batman Begins’ have been massive blockbusters, earning studios and distributors a ton of money and, in the process, allowing Nolan to make the films he wants to make. But such fandom is a double-edged sword—or, perhaps more accurately, a tightrope walk for Nolan. He has to strike a balance between meeting the massive expectations of his fans and pushing the limits of storytelling. So far, to Nolan’s credit, he has been able to walk that tightrope successfully. But does that change with ‘Tenet’? Let’s find out.
‘Tenet’ is everything you would expect from a Nolan film: it’s action-packed, dense, and confusing. Like most of his previous films, it is as interested in surprising audiences as it is in telling a story. In terms of structure and treatment, ‘Tenet’ feels closest to ‘Inception’, though the two films are very different in many ways. It wouldn’t even be wrong to classify ‘Tenet’ as a spy thriller—almost like a Bond film with a time-travel twist. Nolan has, after all, expressed interest in directing a Bond film in the past. I believe that with ‘Tenet’, he is trying to break new ground in the spy genre in much the same way he completely reimagined the superhero genre with ‘The Dark Knight’.
It would be futile for me to get too deeply into the plot of ‘Tenet’ without spoiling several major plot points. And, to be honest, I will need to watch the film at least a couple more times before I can fully wrap my head around all its mind-twisting mechanics. What I can reveal is that the film follows an unnamed Protagonist (John David Washington), a CIA agent who is recruited into a secret organization and tasked with saving the world from complete obliteration. Then there is a Russian oligarch named Sator (Kenneth Branagh), who is hell-bent on acquiring all nine parts of an algorithm and ending the world. Sator’s wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), and the Protagonist’s handler, Neil (Robert Pattinson), help him in his mission to stop Sator.
On paper, the plot might sound simple, almost straight out of a John Grisham novel. But ‘Tenet’ is anything but simple. To fully understand ‘Tenet’—if that’s even possible—you first have to grasp the concept at the center of the film: entropy reversal, which allows objects, including humans, to move backward through time. Yes, I know. For the average moviegoing audience, that’s a big ask. But then, you only have to look at some of Nolan’s previous films—’Interstellar’, ‘Inception’, and ‘Memento’—to understand what he is trying to do with ‘Tenet’. He doesn’t want you to watch ‘Tenet’ once and forget about it; he wants you to keep coming back to it. The more you watch the film, the better you will “get” it.
That does raise a question: is it fair for Nolan to make his films purposefully dense? The answer depends on what kind of viewer you are—whether you watch movies purely for entertainment or look for something more from them. Also, by now, most viewers know what to expect from a Christopher Nolan film. In that sense, ‘Tenet’ is exactly what you would expect it to be.
Whether ‘Tenet’ eventually finds a place among Nolan’s best works, only time will tell. But it will surely be remembered for its breathtaking action sequences, some of which feel unlike anything we have ever seen before on screen. Knowing that those reverse car chases were actually filmed without relying entirely on CGI makes them even more impressive. The action set pieces are so meticulously crafted and so brilliantly thought out that I sometimes wonder whether Nolan imagined them first and then wove a story around them.
And that is also one of the film’s major problems. As long as some kind of high-octane action sequence is unfolding on screen, you are completely engaged. But many of the dialogue-heavy scenes feel overdrawn and clichéd. In fact, if you take away the spectacular action and the film’s head-scratching central concept, much of what remains feels strangely hollow. There are also sound-mixing issues in a few scenes, where the background score is so loud that it becomes difficult to hear the dialogue. I also sorely missed Hans Zimmer’s music, which over the years has become such an integral part of the Nolan experience.
My first impression of ‘Tenet’ is that it is certainly not among Nolan’s best works. The palindrome-like nature of time and the idea of multiple versions of the “self” occupying the same time and space have been explored more effectively in other films such as ‘Arrival’ and ‘Primer’. I also prefer the way ‘Interstellar’ handles time travel to what ‘Tenet’ attempts.
Despite all its flaws, there is something about ‘Tenet’ that stops me from calling it a failed experiment. The ideas it brings to the table are intriguing, to say the least. I also know from past experience that it can sometimes take two or three viewings to fully appreciate a Nolan film. Maybe ‘Tenet’ will grow on me. Maybe it won’t. For now, I can only commend the people behind the film for attempting to do something brave and, more importantly, something new.
Rating: 3/5
