Summary
As a fan of the director, it is not easy to rewatch Christopher Nolan’sTenetfour years after its release. Nowadays, Nolan’s name is synonymous with thehuge success box office ofOppenheimer, last year’s incredible biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The film earnedNolan his first Best Director Oscarand saw Academy Award wins for cast members Robert Downey Jr. and Cillian Murphy. On top ofOppenheimer’s awards success, it was a box-office marvel, making almost $1 billion over the course of its run.
Fresh off ofOppenheimer’s success, it may at first be easy to forget what the acclaimed biopic follows up:Tenet. The narrative ofTenetcould not be more different than that ofOppenheimer. Rather than critically lauded,Tenet’s reviewswere extremely divided, sparking debate over the film’s merit. Additionally, pushing its release forward to 2020 despite the pandemic,Tenetalso struggled at the box office. These statistics alone may be enough to reflect uponTenet, but other aspects of it also didn’t age well in the last four years.
Tenet Ending Explained: Word Meaning, Time Travel & All Questions Answered
The word Tenet and its meaning have plagued viewers of Christopher Nolan’s epic since it premiered in 2020, and the movie offers quite a few answers.
8Tenet Emphasizes Spectacle Over Plot Coherence
Tenet’s Scenes Sometimes Seem Superfluous
As in the case with most Nolan films,Tenetis geared to be a cinematic experience. Gone are the days of the director’s early films likeFollowingandMemento. Now, the director puts ample effort into making sure his films are as big as possibleso that their ideal release platform is an IMAX screen. This tends to work well for Nolan, as it drives up IMAX ticket sales.
Tenet, however, leans into this particular quality of the director far too heavily. At times, the film seems to devote more time to huge stunts than to let the audiences understand the physics of the complicated world ofTenet. A prime example of this is the scene wherein the characters scheme to crash a commercial plane by driving it into a building. While the stunt is impressive, the scene is fast and loud enough that it is more a shock to the eardrums than anything that significantly moves the plot along.
7Tenet’s Exorbitant Budget Is Unnecessary
Tenet Was Made For $205 Million
to create such a spectacle as portrayed in the movie,Tenet needs to rely on a massive budget. ForTenet, this comes in the form of an estimated $205 million budget [viaVariety], which is even higher than that of Nolan’s previous two films,DunkirkandInterstellar. WatchingTenetback, one can’t help but notice that budget is seemingly employed for budget’s sake. The action scene with two catamarans, for example, is primarily used to demonstrate the friction betweenElizabeth Debicki’s character Katand her husband and help establish the relationship between Kat and the Protagonist.
Here, the massive budget thatTenetis awarded arguably becomes a disservice to the sequence, as the extravagant boats distract from the character dynamics at heart.
For the character relationships, this could have been a more understated moment to unveil the friction and build up the character dynamics. Instead, Nolan chooses a huge action scene that is not necessary for the plot. Here, the massive budget thatTenetis awarded arguably becomes a disservice to the sequence, as the extravagant boats distract from the character dynamics at heart. Nolan has said more recently that he is only interested in making large-scale films, but with those high budgets comes risk and responsibility that, in this case, isn’t used wisely.
6The Play With Time Is Not As Tight As It May Seem
Tenet Is Based On Shoddy Science
PerhapsTenet’s most innately appealing element is its play with time.Time is a trademark Nolan theme, and in the world ofTenet,the directionality of time becomes vitally important. Bullets can move backwards and car chases can go in multiple directions. Admittedly,Tenet’s inversions and reverse time travellead to the film’s most impressive and climactic moment, wherein two teams fight each other while moving in opposite directions.
WhileTenetdoes create a visual marvel surrounding the use of time, it overall hinges on science that is widely agreed to not exist. This includes reverse entropy, a concept to which a lot of time is dedicated throughout the film. WhileTenetis a science-fiction movie, the more one scrutinizes it, the more it becomes clear the extent to which the film leans into the “fiction” element of things. In this regard,Tenetdoes not stand up even nearly as well as Nolan’s other time-centric works such asInterstellarorDunkirk.
5Christopher Nolan Misuses Fantastic Actors
Robert Pattinson Is Too Fantastic To Waste
Nolan’s work has led to some all-time great film performances. This includesHeath Ledger’s Joker inThe Dark Knight, as well as Guy Pearce’s amnesia-riddled Leonard inMemento.Tenetis not one such film, for it relies much more heavily on action than devoting time to bringing out great performances. Any character beats are typically cut away from too quickly to be enjoyed, leaving little room to appreciate the actors at the core of the film.
Tenet Main Cast and Characters:
Kenneth Branagh
Sator
This is a huge missed opportunity for Nolan, as he equipped himself with a talented cast forTenet. This most notably includes Robert Pattinson, a formerTwilightstar who has turned into an indie darling through acting in acclaimed works such asGood TimeandHigh Life. Debicki also had huge potential to be better used inTenet, as she is a talented actor who has been twice nominated for an Emmy in the TV showThe Crown. Instead, Nolan once again values spectacle, quashing what could have been fantastic performances.
4Tenet Over-Relies On John David Washington’s Protagonist
John David Washington’s Protagonist Is Boring In The Film
WhileTenetunderestimates the abilities of Pattinson and Debicki to carry the film, it over-relies on the central performance by John David Washington. The son of Hollywood legend Denzel Washington, the actor has been in several films, most notably Spike Lee’sBlacKkKlansmanand Sam Levinson’sMalcolm & Marie,where he co-starred withZendaya.Unfortunately,Washington’s Protagonist is pretty plainand dimensionless inTenet, and that’s an issue since the film spends the bulk of its time following him.
Some of this may be intentional, as the nameless character is far more of a figurehead — a vessel for the plot to happen — than anything else. Given, however, that the Protagonist is positioned as the main action hero in the film, a lot of screen time is devoted to Washington. This emphasis hinges on a great performance, which, sadly, isn’t delivered.
3Tenet Highlights A Frustrating Christopher Nolan Technical Flaw
Tenet Has Frustrating Sound Mixing
While there are a number of story flaws present inTenet, the film also carries with it one notable technical folly: bad sound mixing. Thesound mix is always a controversial element of a Nolan film, as his work is often criticized for being ear-splittingly loud. Despite that, his work often gets awards for sound, as the musical compositions and sonic attempts are often magnificent. His last several works are all inundated with sound, includingDunkirk,Interstellar, andOppenheimer.
Nolan and his team had the opportunity to do some really interesting things sonically to represent the movement of objects in reverse motion in Tenet, but any attempt at subtly is quashed by an oversaturated sound mix.
Tenetseems to be the most glaring example inrecent Nolan years of a poor sound mix. Admittedly, the film’s dialogue could also have been better, but it would still be best if the viewers could actually hear the characters. Unfortunately, they cannot often be heard over all the noise going on within the movie. Nolan and his team had the opportunity to do some really interesting things sonically to represent the movement of objects in reverse motion in Tenet, but any attempt at subtly is quashed by an oversaturated sound mix.
2Tenet Ignores Its Women
Kat Is A Weak Female Character
Another main character-based flaw inTenetis that it does not do justice to its female characters. Kat is the female lead inTenet, but instead of receiving her own bold action plot, she is relegated to the background, and her character arc is too often explored through the lens of men. Though she is self-driven by these goals, they are also only loosely connected to the plight of Neil and the Protagonist. This ultimately relies on the conventional portrayals of women in Hollywood.
In the wake ofOppenheimer,Tenet’s grappling with Kat, and overall refusal to create a dynamic female character, is even more troubling. It is easy totake issue withOppenheimer’s portrayal of womenas well, including Kitty’s lack of autonomy and the distillation of Jean Tatlock into a character who spends too many years pining after Oppenheimer. WithOppenheimerandTenetbeing back-to-back Nolan releases, the director’s mistreatment of female characters is rounding out to be a frustrating trend.
1Tenet Is One Of Christopher Nolan’s Weakest Movies
Christopher Nolan Missed With Tenet
Overall, all these factors build to perhaps the harshest reality upon rewatching and reflecting onTenet: the film is one of Nolan’s weakest works thus. It has all the threads of a great Nolan film — the play with time, the great cast, strong potential for action — but ends up executing said elements so poorly that it becomes a mess. While some die-hard Nolan fans can make excuses for the film, objective viewers can recognize the massive shortcomings that led to the film becoming a disappointment.
Detailed above, said flaws are a lot of what led toTenetbeing Nolan’s most divisive work yet. In the years sinceTenet’s release, there has been talk of thepotential forTenet 2. While making another franchise out of any Nolan film would be exciting, reflections uponTenetmake it seem more and more likeTenet 2would be a bad idea. Perhaps Nolan could partially rescueTenetby making a better sequel, but given the response to the project, it might be better for him to just take on a new narrative.
Tenet
Cast
Armed with only one word—Tenet—and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a nameless Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
