Prot Agonist

The above mentioned characteristics used to make Nolan’s films appealing to viewers, but admittedly, he created a very efficient formula of storytelling which pretends to go into critical depths. «If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.» This Don Marquis quote sums up most of Nolan’s work, however something turned out a little different this time.

The formula is the usual. You have seen it in «Inception», you have seen it in «The Prestige» and you have seen it partially in the «Batman» trilogy. Well-dressed, eloquently speaking characters discuss the plot and nothing but the plot of the film in modern, grey settings which sets the good old Nolan mood. The novelty is the unique way of time-travelling, because quite frankly we have never seen anything like this before.

It is confusing, but bear with it; early on in the film a character tells us not to try to understand it. Yet the rest of the movie is nothing, but the explanation of the above mentioned time travelling method and its implications. So just fasten your seat belts, and enjoy the masterfully executed action scenes with reversed car accidents, bullets flying back into their pistols and fists pulled out from other people’s faces. It’s fun, but is it more? Yes and no.

Yes, because it can actually make you think for a while. «Wait a minute, why did they have to go back this and that much in time when they could have…» and such statements will be often exclaimed after leaving the Corona struck half-empty cinemas. The logic might slightly be inconsistent but that is a property of time travel films. Time travelling itself is a paradox, so if we see it on film, it gets rather confusing.

For the «No» part: Interesting time travelling concept aside, this movie might be nothing more than a Nolanized James Bond flick. We have the best agent there is: Sharp, strong, witty and charming. This is everything you could say about 007, and most of Nolan’s main characters too. The exception this time is the actor (John David Washington) for he was not enough to make it entertaining. He will have to get to the stereotypically Russian villain who speaks English with a thick Russian accent. He happens to be so mean that he wants to destroy the entire world just because his marriage is not going right and because he has cancer. So if life ends for him, then why not for all us? Makes sense? Of course not.

Just as Mr. Goldfinger’s plan to blow up the national gold reserves of the US did not make much sense either or any other Bond villain’s plan for that matter. But how to get to this incredibly vicious fiend a person, who is everything bad that ever was on this planet? Through the blonde femme fatale obviously! The reluctant wife whose only concern is to have her son safe; global catastrophe is secondary.

We have seen this before too. Remember Anne Hathaway in Interstellar, «Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving, that transcends dimensions of time and space.» Thereby, Nolan makes the most important female character of the film to be a one-sided sentimental woman who cares about nothing but family. In fact, all the main characters are one-sided, shallow and rather boring. Only Robert Pattinson’s character is somewhat charming. Unfortunately, he did not get nearly enough screen-time.

All in all, Tenet might be a major let-down for the long-awaiting viewers since the characters got ruthlessly simplified and their conversations serve no other purpose than explaining the plot to the audience. Nevertheless, if you like Christopher Nolan’s style and want to see imaginative action sequences at interesting locations (several shot in Norway) then this might be something for you.

Copyright of all photos used: [TM & Warner Bros. Entertainment (2020)](1)