I had the pleasure of seeing Tenet last night, and it was glorious to be back in the cinema after all this time. They were even serving popcorn, which I was doubtful about given how they were encouraging us to wear masks (the maskwearing actually added an extra layer to the film, given that oxygen masks play an important role in the film’s latter half). More importantly, the film was also really good, as I wrote on Letterboxd two days ago:
I’m a bit stuck between four and four-and-a-half stars for this film’s rating, because I don’t think it really suits either. In my head, it’s a 4.25 star film, so I decided to mark it up. This is undoubtedly Nolan’s best movie since Inception – an exciting, technically masterful, brilliantly scored throwback to ’60s Bond movies (particularly Thunderball) with some classic Nolan complicated sci-fi rubbed in for good measure. This is the sort of movie that demands a second and even third viewing – if Inception was confusing on first watch, Tenet is damn near incomprehensible, but I say that in the best way possible. It is challenging in a way that no $200 million blockbuster has ever been before; if you switch off for one second you’ll be lost for the next five or ten minutes. The expository scenes fill in the basics but then it’s up to the audience to fill in the finer details as Nolan bounces from one exquisitely crafted action setpiece to the next. I’m making it sound a bit pretentious, but it’s also supremely exhilarating. There’s the aforementioned action scenes, which are all superbly shot and mostly achieved practically, which is awesome. The special effects are flawless and Ludwig Goransson’s pulsating, unforgettable score (if he doesn’t win another Oscar for this I’ll lose all hope in humanity). The film’s been criticised a bit for its supposedly cold characters but I didn’t really have that problem. Once you accept that they’re fulfilling various Bondian archetypes, they provide a compelling anchor in this complex story. I cannot stress this enough: John David Washington is so good in this film. He’s funny, suave, plays the emotional scenes well… if he wasn’t American, he’d be my top pick for the next James Bond. That man is a star, mark my words, and it has nothing to do with nepotism. The rest of the cast are all good: Robert Pattinson is fun, Elizabeth Debicki is compelling, Kenneth Branagh gives a very broad performance (which I didn’t mind) and Michael Caine was in it for about three minutes and still got his name featured on the poster. The reason I haven’t rated the film higher is because at certain points the complex rules of the Tenet universe felt like they were keeping me at arm’s length a little; I was occasionally spending too much time trying to figure out what the hell was going on when I should have been invested in the drama of the scenes. This problem was most evident to me near the beginning of the climax, when things get really complicated and confused the hell outta me. Luckily, I was able to overcome my stupidity so as to enjoy the third act, which is emotional, cathartic and boasts some immense creativity. Overall, Tenet is a great film and I couldn’t have asked for a better one to welcome myself back to cinemas with.
I’m serious about the Thunderball comparison. The similarities are indisputable: one-liner dropping emotionally distant hero, fun Felix Leiter-esque sidekick, troubled main female character who is at the mercy of a broadly-played foreign villain… When you factor in the fact that it has several scenes set on boats, Tenet is kind of a time-travel remake of Thunderball. I’d have thought this was just a coincidence but this is the man who appropriated a lot of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service imagery for the climax to Inception, so who knows? He’s definitely been vocal about how this film is his most direct homage to the Bond franchise.
As if getting a new Christopher Nolan movie wasn’t good enough, we also get a new Charlie Kaufman in the form of I’m Thinking of Ending Things in three days (I also plan to read his film-focused debut novel Antkind soon, and I might write about it for the blog, schedule permitting) and then the intriguing The Devil All the Time on the sixteenth. Oh, and The New Mutants is also out but I’m struggling to build up the motivation to go to a cinema for… that. After a long dry period, it feels like movies are well and truly back.
Beyond the Popcorn 