Review - Tenet


Tenet is a film with few expectations on it, it only has to be the film to bring audiences back into cinemas after six months of closure, so no biggie. It is also... It is a lot and what we're going to have here is one of those reviews that is in part going to be me attempting to break down what I saw for my own benefit. I'm also going to steer clear of spoilers, because I know the film isn't yet playing in America and plenty of people don't yet feel comfortable going to the cinema, a decision I completely respect. Anyway, the plot of Tenet is ambiguous, both in how the film has been marketed and even by the end of the film. What I feel confident saying is that our protagonist is a secret agent who, after a mission gone wrong, is recruited by an agency even more mysterious than the one he previously worked for. With the help of allies whose motives are ambiguous, he must prevent annihilation, the form of which is also initially unclear. My vague words and unclear descriptions may seem like an attempt to avoid spoilers but no, details are vague. By the end of Tenet, I do feel I understood the general structure and big beats of the story, but many smaller or more specific elements remain mysteries. Part of it doesn't quite feel like my fault (we'll get to that later), but there's also part of me that realises how complex this plot is. You should not feel ashamed if you can't wrap your head around it, but I feel like the larger plot isn't too impossible to wrap your head around with enough thought. It should be noted though that stories dealing with time and paradoxes are very much my vibe and so not only am I predisposed to like Tenet because of that, I'm also well versed in temporal meddling.

Though it's hardly the most interesting thing about a film like this, I really like the performances! John David Washington plays The Protagonist (genuinely the name his character is credited as) and is very charismatic. As a lead actor, he hasn't been around long and I had only seen him before in BlacKkKlansman but here, he is charming. He's the audience surrogate, slowly being brought into this world of time inversion and allowing us to get our heads around it, meaning his character gets to grow in confidence as the film progresses. I still wasn't entirely sure who he was by the end (I think by design?), but I enjoyed the journey we took getting there. Also great is Robert Pattinson, who appears to have lost the ability to give bad performances. Again, his character grows more as the film progresses, new sides of him being constantly unveiled, but I loved watching him regardless of what stage of the film we were in. With Elizabeth Debicki, I find myself a little at odds at how to talk about her performance. On the one hand, she is another great screen presence in this film, a presence I loved watching, but then she also fits into the classic problem of most of Nolan's female characters in that she isn't very well developed. I don't believe the Bechdel test is always an effective measure of female agency in a film, but Tenet is a pretty clear failure, a shame for such a talented actress. Finally, I really enjoyed the slight silliness of Kenneth Branagh. He has a Russian accent and his motivation is the reason for much of the bad stuff in the film in a way that is cheesy in a really charming way. There is one moment involving him that I found unintentionally funny but otherwise, I think it's a performance that understands the tone of the film better than even Christopher Nolan did. It's a really solid cast basically and when they're asked to do very tasking things, they do it very well.

For any of the problems you can have with the story, it is a film whose action scenes completely deliver.

What we mainly expect from a Christopher Nolan film though is something impressively cinematic and on those grounds, Tenet delivers. For any of the problems you can have with the story, it is a film whose action scenes completely deliver. These scenes are uniformly brilliant, granted a sense of tension and authenticity by the fact that most of them were genuinely filmed as they are seen on screen. It's also in these scenes that I think the temporal playfulness most pays off, in which we get to see action playing out both forwards and backwards. The bits in the trailers where we see a car crash in reverse and a fist fight between two men in different times are even more impressive when you see them in context and some of the final bits that weren't in the trailer are worth the build up. Constantly throughout Tenet, I kept thinking "how the hell did they do that?" and even in the moments where I thought I knew how it was done, I was blown away that it was actually possible and looked so good. If you are looking for a visual spectacle to welcome you back into a cinema, this is really one of the best demonstrations of cinematic excellence that you could hope for.

But there are some problems with this film, and primarily, they come down to the sound. On its own, the sound isn't the problem. Ludwig Göransson, a composer who I've been a fan of since his work on Community, delivers the score and it is awesome. There are moments of rise and fall in the music that are great and I can imagine myself returning to the score again and again. Even the sound effects are awesome, lending the stuff on screen a genuine heft. However, the big problem is the way all of the sounds are mixed. This is a film that has many really difficult concepts it needs to explain to the audience and if an audience member doesn't adequately understand them, the rest of the film is going to make exactly no sense. Unfortunately, many of these moments of exposition are impossible to understand because they are either delivered through masks or delivered under the score, blasting louder than during most of the action scenes. Like I said earlier, the plot of this film is the kind of jumbled nonsense that I go for, so I feel like I pieced together most of it, but there are details that have slipped me by. It is impossible to tell whether these details are meant to be ambiguous or if it's a fault of the mixing in the film that they aren't understood. It's become a bit of a meme that the sound mixing can be bad in Christopher Nolan films but this is a whole new level of ridiculous incomprehensibility. Ironically, it is the one level where I feel Tenet could be better at home, because you would have the option to turn on much needed subtitles. As it stands right now, I really want to see the film again but am holding off until a subtitled screening, because I feel like I've missed a lot of important dialogue that is going to allow the film to finally sit right with me.

It feels like Nolan has deliberately self-sabotaged himself with the sound mixing.

I want to love Tenet, I really do. It is admirably bonkers and has appropriately gonzo setpieces to accompany that strange central fascination, but it feels like Nolan has deliberately self-sabotaged himself with the sound mixing. A coherent plot shouldn't define a film but if you set aside many scenes for important exposition and then don't allow the audience to hear them, you're hanging yourself with your own rope. My rating may go up if I see the film with subtitles but for now, I would feel a liar giving this film anything more than a 

And as a final note, whether you return to the cinemas at the moment should be up to you. If you still feel unsafe, I don't think Tenet is a film worth the stress it may put you through. However, as someone happy wearing a mask for a few hours and who knows that he goes to the cinema at quiet times, it was worth the risk for me.

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