Christopher Nolan's Tenet Review

In a world where there’s remakes, sequels, and prequels, Christopher Nolan is constantly giving us something unique that makes the audience walk out of the movie theatre while never having felt something like that before, and Nolan does that again with his latest mind dazzling film, Tenet. Chris Nolan is one of my personal favourite directors of all time; his movies are original, new, over the top and most importantly, culturally impactful. His 2010 sci-fi epic ‘Inception’ is quite possibly my favourite movie of all time. It was inevitable for me to see Tenet as soon as I possibly can, so here’s my take on it.
On first viewing I literally understood nothing from it and was confused during the whole movie, just kept wondering what was going on, it’s the most Nolan-Esque movie to date. Although the plot was utterly confusing, I genuinely enjoyed it a lot and was intrigued the whole time. I loved the new concept that the movie revolves around, which I couldn’t even spoil if I tried. I was thrilled by the action scenes. It was ridiculously good, Nolan’s best to date. A massive step up from the dark knight trilogy which was great as well. There’s a scene where the fight choreography and the movements of the characters are just so well made it was breathtaking. There’s another scene mentioned in the trailers that involves crashing a plane that I just thought to myself “How on earth did they do that?” considering the fact that Christopher Nolan doesn’t like to rely on CGI and instead uses as much as practical effects as possible, like he is famously known for doing in his previous movies, especially the dark knight. That’s one of the main reasons he’s admired for as a filmmaker. I was quite impressed that by the end of the film I walked out of the movie theatre literally understanding nothing, yet still enjoyed the hell out of it. First impressions were definitely positive, I was quite intrigued to go home and try to actually understand what the movie is about.
After my second viewing of Tenet and many attempts on YouTube trying to understand what the film is about, I can safely say that I finally understood Tenet, yet not fully. But that was a whole new level of enjoyment watching the movie. The plot is fascinating, but it’s not without its flaws. The film reached a level of complexity during the second half that is beyond imagination. It’s quite confusing sometimes; the dialogue is so fast and it’s hard to keep up with what’s happening, one line that slips through my head might affect my understanding of the movie for the next 15 minutes or so. It’s not like Inception where everything had its rules and was explained to us smoothly during the course of the film. I didn’t know what can happen and what can’t. It just wants to tell its story right away, and I really did know what I was in for because it’s a Christopher Nolan movie. But the levels in this are staggering, and it was very difficult for me to get the full picture, but certainly not impossible, some people actually found it quite subtle and were able to understand it from the first watch. Other people, however, walked out of the theatres in the middle of the movie, which is quite understandable, Tenet is not for everyone, I personally really liked it though, but it’s not flawless.
Which leads me to my next problem with the movie, that is the complete lack of character depth and emotion. Like I said, the film wants to tell its story right away, it’s a plot over characters film. John David Washington basically doesn’t have a name in the movie, he’s just referred to as the “protagonist”, which shows what Tenet’s priorities are. It’s certainly not Interstellar, and it didn’t have that feeling of overwhelm by the end of Nolan’s movies which I honestly love, it didn’t have that emotion in the characters, you don’t really ‘feel’ anything for them in the end. This wasn’t a huge problem for me like it was for some other people but it was definitely a missed opportunity to properly develop a relationship between the two main characters that we could actually care for, especially that the movie’s ending revealed something that happened off-screen between the characters, that would have added so much if it was shown. Wasted potential in my opinion. Although the drama in Elizabeth Debicki’s character is extremely effective, and her conflict with her husband portrayed by Kenneth Branagh was great, which delivers one hell of an intimidating performance. Tremendous acting from both of these two. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson were great too, and very charismatic, but they didn’t have many dramatic challenges like other characters such as Kat and Saitor, portrayed by Debicki and Branagh, respectively.
The film looked great, the cinematography as usual in Christopher Nolan’s films is top-notch. The score was pretty epic, just phenomenal. But not nearly as impactful or memorable like previous Nolan movies, specifically Inception and Interstellar. Tenet needed Hans Zimmer in my opinion, would’ve added a lot more, although what we got was nothing short of brilliant, and Travis Scott’s song ‘The Plan’ that was featured in the movie worked out pretty well.
I know it’s a bit early to ask for, but I hope Chris Nolan’s next film is less complicated and richer in characters, plot and emotion. But overall, Tenet was incredible. You should definitely know what you’re in for though, if you’re a Nolan fan and have seen some of his movies, definitely check it out. It was a great return to the cinema for me since the last movie that I saw in theatres six months ago, which was Birds of Prey. Certainly enjoyed Tenet a lot, an 8/10 for me.