Tenet

 seen on 1 September 2020

Christopher Nolan's new film Tenet stars John David Washington as 'the Protagonist', Robert Pattinson as Neil, Elizabeth Debicki as Kat Sator and Kenneth Branagh as Andrei Sator. It has been described as Nolan's "James Bond film", and has unwittingly become the blockbuster which the cinema distribution world hopes will bust the blockage of unease over the coronavirus and encourage people to take up cinema-going again as a safe leisure activity. In my local complex, which has nine screens, the film is being shown this week at twenty-minute intervals in different rooms. I was the only person in the screening I attended, with about 200 empty seats keeping me socially distanced.

The film has many Nolan trademarks - sharp design, personable actors, impressive special effects, an insistent but basically appropriate score, and a demanding plot. Even though there is a Bond-type villain intent on mass destruction, the whole situation is massively complicated by 'inversion', an apparent flouting of the laws of physics which could put the whole world in peril. Naturally it is too hard to explain, and attempts at exposition often tail off before they get going - a sign, perhaps, that we don't really need to understand the theory of what is going on in order to be able to enjoy it. 

This is all fair enough providing the film maintains internal consistency by its own lights and remains more or less coherent. I think it does this, but a second viewing would confirm the impression. As advice for a potential first-time viewer I would only say, pay very close attention to details, especially when the camera shots seem to invite attention. I suspect that (apart from the hokum of 'inversion') there may be one certain implausibility - but maybe my second viewing, when it happens, will prove me wrong about this.

John David Washington and Robert Pattinson make for a good double act, perhaps not given enough space to shine as brightly as they might. Pattinson delivers one of his last lines with a perfect blend of charm and ruefulness made all the more enjoyable for its cunning and knowing riff on one of the most famous endings on film. Elizabeth Debicki plays a role that is not new to her, as it resembles her position in The Night Manager, an excellent TV adaptation of John LeCarre's novel. Kenneth Branagh brings to his part both the classic Bond villain superciliousness and a terrifying streak of vicious cruelty which certainly raises the personal stakes for our hero, named simply, though perhaps pretentiously, as 'the Protagonist'.

Nolan thinks big on effects, having given us folding up cities (Inception), massive tidal waves (Interstellar), the mayhem of war (Dunkirk) and now the mysteries of 'inversion'. The effects in Tenet are cleverly disorienting as they fiendishly serve to illustrate the challenge our heroes face. What more could one ask of a Bond movie made by someone who delights in visual puzzles made possible by film technology? Ah yes, an amusing cameo from Michael Caine, and a 'Q' substitute to fail to enlighten us in the form of Clémence Poésy.