Tenet (2020)- Review

Watched. 

My rating: 5.9/10. 

 

 Let me just get this out of the way first: I never in a million years would've predicted that I will hear "Jhumka Gira Re" (a famous Indian song; classic) in a Christopher Nolan film.

  Ladies and gentlemen, Tenet is, how shall I put it? Bad. Its pretty bad, especially by Nolan standards. Which begs the question: Why? Its a well shot film. It has great shot composition and blocking. Why is it bad? Well, it is terribly written. And how the conversations are edited together do not help it. Yes the action sequences look quite good with the hyperactive cuts but, it butchers the conversations. You're trying to pay attention to the needlessly complicated exposition but the camera keeps jumping around. Which is surprising because the editor of this film is Jennifer Lame, the woman behind "Manchester by the Sea" (2016), "Midsommar" (2019) and "Marriage Story" (2019), which are all dialogue heavy movies and they have some of the best editing in recent years. Tenet is largely comprised of conversations between characters, and the editing really hurts them. I don't know what went wrong, Jennifer, but I hope you recover from this misstep.

  In the writing department, there is no character development. It seems, Nolan can't be bothered with depth in his characters. As if he has transcended above the commotion of us peasants where we bicker over each other and our characters every waking hour to add some substance to our writing. It is kind of infuriating to watch. To see that Nolan has become such a huge name that he can do whatever he wants, and he is just pissing it all away.

  His knack for ascribing bare minimum backstory to his characters have worked up until now because of his complex, interesting and, above all, comprehensible plots. Of course there are exceptions such as Joker from The Dark Knight (2008) and Cooper from The Interstellar (2014). Joker had a twisted yet compelling sense of morality and Cooper had his love for his family and his love for science clashing with each other, like the same sides of two magnets. What does "The Protagonist" have? He doesn't even have a name! Tenet's plot is complex, seldom interesting and, above all, incomprehensible.

  What's the point of having a puzzle of a narrative, if I don't have any emotional engagement with it? I won't even have any incentives to research about the movie to understand it (which I will anyway, because time is of little value to me, ha ha). Plus the sound design is really bad in certain sequences for a big budget film. The explosions completely camouflage the dialogues in action scenes.

  I watched Dunkirk (2017) last year, and declared it Nolan's finest work yet. And, sadly, I'll continue to say it. I'm not the biggest Nolan fan, even though I like his movies. Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014) rank second and third respectively. I'm not too keen on most of his films is because I don't believe he is a strong writer of characters. I love how he manages to create these intricate worlds with their own intricate rules and how he plays with time. Dunkirk, the way its structured, the way its written, allows Nolan to not only play with time but also ignore the character backstories. The kind of story Dunkirk is, you don't need rich, deep characters to connect with. They are soldiers in a dire situation and that's all you need to know to empathize with them. Dunkirk fits perfectly with Nolan's signature style and that's why I believe that it sits on the throne of his filmography.

  To add shitty icing on a shitty cake, the end credits plays a third rate song, the kind you find in a 12 year old's playlist. Like the soundtrack- including the background score- the film is forgettable.

 Tenet is a film which feels pretentious and arrogant not only in its presentation, but also in its expectation of it's audience. I expected better from you Nolan. Maybe its time for you to hang up your hat? I hope not. I hope you return stronger then ever.