T Reviews ‘Tenet’: Nolan Wants to Destroy all of Our Eardrums

Admittedly going to watch this film following a 6-month hiatus away from the cinema owing to a global pandemic likely set my expectations exceedingly high, higher than what could’ve realistically been met by a film from a director whose films as of late tend to frustrate me for reasons I probably shouldn’t get into for the sake of staying on topic. So unfortunately, ‘Tenet’ ended up underwhelming me more than amazing me.

The film wasn’t all bad though, if there’s one thing Nolan knows how to do it is to come up with an inventive concept/premise and this film is no exception. The premise of time inversion is all vaguely explained by an indifferent Clémence Poésy (I don’t remember her character’s name which should tell you all you need to know about her character’s development) in a scene that manages to simultaneously dump exposition on the viewer whilst not really saying much at all, and concludes with her telling the viewer uh – I mean, the protagonist—to not try too hard to understand it and just “feel it”. Whilst I’m still not entirely sure I fully understood time inversion and how reversing entropy would allow for this technology to exist, the concept in itself did allow for some wildly inventive visuals and stunts including John David Washington and the stunt crew having to do fight scenes backwards. All the large action set pieces and fight scenes were exciting and a sight to behold, and trying to imagine how the cast and crew were able to pull them off given Nolan’s preference for practical effects over computer-generated effects made my head spin almost as much as the plot of the film.

As well as having a unique premise, I will give credit where credit is due by praising every member of the cast who all gave solid performances. John David Washington has a natural charisma and swagger that was utilised really well giving his character a 007-esque vibe; if this performance didn’t convince you of the need for a black Bond, I don’t know what will. Robert Pattinson was a delight as the protagonist’s right-hand man whose performance reads differently, in a good way, upon a re-watch once information about the character has come to light. John and Robert had amazing chemistry that at times veered towards the romantic so much so that by the end I fully expected the characters to kiss, what I’m trying to say is the chemistry between the two carried the film and is what primarily made the film engaging. All the other performances from Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, and Himesh Patel among many others in a star-studded ensemble cast were all good as well.

Unfortunately, I’d say the performances were good in spite of the script. The character work was severely lacking, characters’ backgrounds and motivations were scarce or poorly established even in the case of the protagonist for whom the only thing we really know about his motivations/drivers is that he passed a “test” at the beginning of the film and that’s it. Beyond him passing the test and being well trained (in the CIA?) that’s all the information we get on our film’s protagonist, and you could make the argument that he’s not the only protagonist as is posited by Dimple Kapadia’s character but all the other characters similarly have little to no development as well so… The only character who has some semblance of character development in that we understand their motivations is Elizabeth Debicki’s Kat whose main motivator for everything she does in the film is her son, but we are shown very little of that relationship with her son outside of a few throw-away scenes outside his school meaning we are left to just believe her son is so important to her because she tells us so instead of actually being shown this. Worse still is that whilst Kat’s character is a step up from the stereotypical wife character in Nolan’s films who tend to be well, dead, she’s still put in positions that firmly have her as a damsel in distress. That’s right, Christopher Nolan manages to somehow turn 6”3’ Elizabeth Debicki THEE Stallion into a damsel in distress. Not a good look.

I cannot finish the review without addressing the elephant in the room alluded to in my review title, that elephant being the sound design of this film. Past Nolan films like ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Dunkirk’ especially have been loud with Hans Zimmer being fond of swelling organs during climactic points that try to capture the epic sense of what is happening on screen. Sometimes the swelling music almost drowns out what is happening on screen but generally there is no dialogue happening to be drowned out anyway, and that is the main difference between Nolan’s previous films and this one. There were a few scenes where the music swells to near-deafening volumes whilst characters on-screen were talking in a way that I found incredibly jarring and frustrating. More than likely nothing integral to the plot was being said in these scenes and so missing out on parts of the dialogue didn’t impact my understanding (or lack thereof) of the film’s plot but it still felt poorly timed. And maybe I’m getting old, but the amount the volume of the soundtrack went up during these moments just felt like way too much.

Ultimately what this film lacks in character development, the actors do their best to make up for with their dedicated performances which coupled with the unique premise and accompanying action set pieces and visuals meant that I still had fun in spite of the flaws I outlined. I guess it really is like Clémence Poésy said: “Don’t try to understand it, feel it.”

The Verdict: 7/10

– T