TENET (2020) TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE WITH A CONVOLUTED SCRIPT. MOVIE REVIEW.

An analogy for Tenet

My experience after watching Tenet, I can best describe it with an analogy. Imagine you arrive at a fancy restaurant for dinner. The decoration is exquisite, the lights and the music create a perfect atmosphere. A renowned chef takes care of the food. The expectation is very high. At the table, they serve the food: 5 main dishes, and they tell you that to enjoy the best possible flavor, you must find the perfect combination among the 5. They will not tell you what it is, since it will ruin the experience. You spend all night trying to find that secret combination to experience that mythical flavor that you have been promised. Unfortunately, you have not been able to do it. And even though everything is seemingly perfect around you, you leave the place with the feeling that something was missing.

Agents, spies, and a dangerous new «Tenet» technology.

Tenet is the latest production from the renowned director Christopher Nolan, where a couple of special agents travel around the world of international espionage investigating the origin of a new and secret technology that can manipulate time and that in the wrong hands can alter the future of humanity. Explaining this technology is difficult, and each viewer should discover it by themselves. But here is a small clue: the meaning of the word Tenet.  It is a word that is equal to the right or the other way around, and that is also known as a palindrome.

So far it seems to be the standard story of any James Bond movie. And certainly, that trotting around the world in the highest spheres of power meeting spies and mysterious characters makes inevitable to make the comparison. But this story goes much further in its ambitions. The technology in question and its novel way of traveling through time is something never seen in any 007 movies, or in any other film. And it is precisely when it comes to the intricacy of this technology and its complex use and application in the story that is the biggest problem at Tenet.

The overambitious complexity of Tenet’s script

Nolan has masterfully presented stories with a high level of complexity, such as Inception, where he asks a great commitment on the part of the viewer to understand the intricacies of the plot. This is very appreciated. The films that make the viewer think are always well received. But in Tenet, the intricacy of the story is never properly explained to the viewer.

Extremely far-fetched concepts about time and space theories and the technology used in the story, and require a basic understanding of them from the viewer. But the problem is that is only superficially explained. If you don’t get it completely the first time, well, sorry, you missed it. For this reason, the viewer is left wondering what is happening in many parts of the film, which directly affects the ability to fully enjoy the story. Whenever you should focus on what is happening in the current scene, your brain is trying to figure out what just happened in the previous one. This approach from Nolan, who also writes the script, is pretentious and lessens the fun factor of the whole film.

Cold characters.

Adding to the presumptuousness of the script, the characters are cold and distant. At no time we can feel related to them. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson are fine in their roles as the agents, but there is no depth in the script to their characters they can work with. Furthermore, Washington’s character name is just «Protagonist» We can sympathize with Kat, played by Elizabeth Debicki who manages to bring a much-needed touch of humanity to the story. But the villain Sator, played by Kenneth Brannagh, is a cartoonish portrayal of a Bond baddie, exotic accent and all.

A great technical achievement.

But all these problems in the script are compensated by first-rate technical aspects all around the film. Technically it is a masterpiece. Jennifer Lame’s editing makes the movie interesting at all times, transitioning seamlessly from one scene to another. The original music is has a vibrant electronic sound. All the production design throughout the film is admirable. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is magnificent, standing out most in excellent fighting sequences and car chases. But it is the department of special effects where Tenet stands out the most. When the «Tenet» time is used, the scenes are of tremendous complexity and are extremely well accomplished.

Missed the opportunity to be a classic.

All the achievements of Tenet, technically speaking are simply fabulous, but the film is marred by an extremely complex script, unable to stop to explain a little more to the average viewer who is neither an expert in the theory of relativity nor a connoisseur of the intricate concepts of the relationship of space and time. Perhaps with time the film will be more appreciated and understood.

Delirium Score