In ‘Tenet‘, the film that became famous for its complicated pandemic launch in 2020, screenwriter and director Christopher Nolan plays again with time. It is one of his recurring themes and the one that ensured his first great success with ‘Memento‘. More than two decades have passed since then, and the London-born director seems to be able to get any budget and attract the most outstanding acting and technical talents to turn his ideas into films for the big screens. ‘Tenet‘, however, had a strange fate also because many spectators saw it in their own salons and not in cinemas halls that were closed due to the pandemic. It’s a film that only Nolan could have written and directed, and like for many of his other films, the opinions of the viewers are extremely polarised. I confess that ‘Tenet‘ left me confused, and this is not only because it has a complicated story, which uses phenomena from a science of physics that I do not claim to have understood.
It is one of those films reviewers should write as little as possible about their story, so as not to rob the interest and pleasure of those who have not seen it yet. We are dealing with heroes who save the world as in movies like James Bond or Mission Impossible, and we are also dealing with time travel based on a scientific premise explained in detail. Intense efforts and a lot of money have been invested in both directions. It is an almost non-stop action film, which fits well with the mentioned blockbusters, both in terms of visual effects and geographical sceneries (we are taken through Mumbai, Kiev, Oslo, Geneva, Vietnam, etc.). Time travel is detailed from the perspective of several characters, and lovers of temporal paradoxes can enjoy several such situations. The film has undeniable visual qualities and the originality of the special effects has been deservedly rewarded with an Academy Award.
My problem with Christopher Nolan‘s films is that they fail to engage me emotionally while I am watching. I always appreciate them more retrospectively, when I think about them and when I intellectually decant what I have seen, but I have to make an effort to follow them in real time. This is exactly what has happened to me now. I’m a fan of action movies, but the combination with temporal science fiction was difficult to watch and made the story confusing at times. I am also passionate about intelligent science fiction, but in ‘Tenet‘ the abundance of explanations seemed excessive to me, they did not make the story clearer and there was no need for so much science for viewers who are accustomed to cinematic pretexts. One of the qualities of the film is that the characters evolve or are gradually revealed to us, many of them being more than stereotypes, but even so they did not manage to involve me emotionally.
John David Washington is an anti-hero cast in a role similar to those routinely undertaken by Tom Cruise, and the scenes in which he interacts with the character played by Elizabeth Debicki are about the only ones that caused mes some real emotion. Another interesting casting is that of Keneth Branagh as a ‘bad guy’ like in the James Bond movies. In general, it is a first-rate cast, but I don’t think any role here will remain among the ‘best’ of the stars in the credits. It was a pleasure to watch Michael Caine again, even if in one scene only, especially since he plays a character named Sir Michael. Otherwise, the film was for me visually spectacular, but confusing. I recommend future viewers not to try to understand too much, or to wait until after watching, when the opinion about what they saw will start to improve. I personally miss the simplicity of the idea and the minimalism in ‘Memento‘.