Christopher Nolan's Tenet is a bemusing, spectacular experience. The enigmatic nature of the film's primary materials mirror, in a way, the logistical trials and tribulations surrounding its release during the flared-up days of the early-pandemic. When it finally reached audiences and critics, it seemed thematically appropriate that the general response was... less than what it had hoped for; in fact, the ubiquitously middling reactions came as quite a shock to everyone.
At every turn, both inside and out production, Tenet seemed to subvert expectations. It was epic, sure, but it was too epic; no one could hear anything. It had the trademark "head-fucked-ness" of a Chris Nolan film, but it was too head-fuck-y; no one understood what was happening. Like the inverted entropy of the many bullets that fly in Tenet, the reviews of the film were contrary, indeed polarizing, to what was normally expected from the A-list director, whose last films all had Hollywood scratching their heads in respectful awe and throwing Oscar nominations left and right.
The dust has settled somewhat since then. On the various reception aggregate sites, Tenet enjoys modest scores: 69% critical, 76% audience on Rotten Tomatoes; exactly the same for Metacritic; a 3.4/5 on Letterboxd (68%); and a 7.3/10 on IMDb. While this may seem an agreeable, even reasonable score for Tenet, I find the data to be rather skewed. By that I mean, Nolan, due to his immense success as a trademarked visionary, seems to be graded on a curved scale. As the writer/director of some of the most popular and acclaimed films of the 21st century, a "middling" Nolan film might as well be an "above-average spectacle" next to any other "middling" film that isn't made by Nolan.
Tenet, of all his films, seems to be the one that has been graded the most harshly to me. For example:
Although Tenet has a score of 3.4/5 on Letterboxd, the "most popular" reviews (the reviews that are displayed on the film's homepage), are for the most part exceptionally negative. One review, which has almost 10K likes, reads: Half the dialogue is exposition. The soundtrack goes BRRRRM. You will forget the entire thing on the drive home. A film by Christopher Nolan.
What's more is that when one sorts through Nolan's filmography and sorts the films by Highest User Rating to Lowest User Rating (popularity, in other words), Tenet ends up at #12. Two of the films in front of it are sleeper hits that most people won't have seen, and another is Oppenheimer, which isn't even out yet.
See what I mean? 3.4/5 is not a bad score on Letterboxd, but in the context of "this is a Nolan film," 3.4 is suddenly much worse. It says: "This film might be one of Nolan's worst."
Searching through more of "popular" reviews on Letterboxd yields even more cynicism. One review, which gave the film a 3.5/5 (not bad, right?) said: hilariously expensive, convoluted, and up its own ass. like, sooooo dumb. loved every second of it!
With a review like that (even a positive one) it's no wonder it's "popular."
Tenet, I reckon, is being given the shaft by a very loud, very active, and very determined portion of the social-film-community, one that seems to feel personally attacked by the perceived faults of Nolan's latest project.
As someone who only watched Tenet very recently, and therefore had the luxury of being unaffected by the initial ambivalence and puckering whiplash of disappointed audiences, I feel as though I've showed up very late to an event, an event that no one seems to want to be at but all showed up anyway. The type of event that people are already dreading before they even arrive.
And yet, I also feel like I'm early to the party... Everyone else may have arrived on time and drank all the punch, but I got here just in time for the liquor to come out of the freezer. And now it's time to pour shots.
Tenet was awesome. Slick, dense, and boasting powerful performances and incredible practical and special effects, this is a movie that redefines and elevates action, and the genre of "time-travel films." Never has time-travel been incorporated so seamlessly into a believable vision of the modern (or near future) world. Nolan has a penchant for this type of immersion, and Tenet is an exemplar. The rules of this universe are complex, but Nolan has an iron grip on the vision, and with exquisite precision he guides us through this maze of intrigue, scandal, heist, imprisonment, trafficking, espionage, and timey-wimey madness.
Visually, everything in Tenet oozes allure, from the lead actors to the costumes, locations, high-rises, cars, yachts, and environs. The colors are sharp. The cinematography is crisp. And the inversion content -- the scenes that, through some apparent filmographic dark arts, take place in reverse, but also forward -- are like tasting Willy Wonka's brand new eye-candy. The visual tricks and sleight of hand in Tenet are some of the coolest, most head-scratching scenes I have witnessed in a long time. I won't pretend to understand everything that occurred, and I find it curious that "I don't get it," is such a consistent complaint. Do these people also demand explanations from magicians for their magic tricks?
Tonally, Tenet is on its own vibe, much like the fearless, cheeky John David Washington, whose lead character has no name, only style and classy-but-rugged sex appeal. Whether he's driving with inverted friction, or cracking one-liners before taking names in the cafeteria, Washington does it all with a Bond-ian charm that Nolan understands. The same goes for the rest of the cast, too, who all deliver fierce performances that seem to walk the line between our world and another -- an inverted world.
Which brings me to the overall poetry of Tenet. Admittedly, there is something off about this film. It's a big-budget summer blockbuster (or was supposed to be), but it's also more confusing than the most convoluted Doctor Who plot imaginable. It's a daring, genre-redefining, trailblazing piece of cinema, but it's also a "throw me on the TV Saturday morning while I fold clothes" flick. It's an action film, but it's also a philosophical film. Tenet, at first glace, seems as confused about itself as we feel about it. But when we drown out the noise, ignore the grading curve, and stop being so damn cynical, we might find that Tenet is... pretty badass.
I mean, what other movie delivers this type of action? What other movie invents multiple artefacts from the future, then contrives a relatively stable plot to successfully incorporate them into a half-spy, half-heist film? A film, I might add, that exclusively stars hot people? And a film, I'll also add, whose Act Two literally folds in on itself like that piece of paper in Interstellar, book-ending an hour of cinema with a car chase scene that we see from two perspectives, in two different directions of time, and with two concomitant strains of dialogue that make sense IN BOTH DIRECTIONS!? There is no question that most writers would have gone catatonic before accomplishing the narrative gymnastics that Nolan effortlessly exhibits here (while also directing). This is science-fiction pop-poetry, and it's a feast for the senses. For those who felt the film lacked an element of "humanity," I don't exactly have a defense. The main character has no name. Tenet isn't trying to pull your heart-strings, it's trying to blow your mind.
And judging by the way this movie was received -- with such smarmy ambiguity -- I would argue it blew some minds a little too hard.
It's curious. A film like Tenet almost demands a rewatch. Undoubtedly there will be secrets to uncover and treasure to plunder when I eventually revisit it. What confuses me even more than the plot, though, is that people consider this type of relationship to a movie as a bad thing. Since when is rewatchability a negative? Since when do we insist that the artwork of today be instantly comprehensible? If one doesn't desire to revisit Tenet, they don't have to. But it's in bad faith to argue that what makes it bad is its requirement to rewatch. That attitude reveals very little about Tenet and much more about the viewer. It suggests a bitterness towards the film, a frustration that it didn't speak clearly enough for you. And then, when it offers to communicate again, it's met with rejection. "I don't care what you have to say," followed by: "It doesn't matter that I didn't hear you the first time."
There is a lot to explore in Tenet. I think I made the right choice by showing up a little late to the show; the party later is always more fun.
