TENET: An Exhilarating Experiencce
Genre: Action, Thriller, Science fiction
Writer-director, Christopher Nolan, uses every moment available to overload our sense. We jump from one picturesque scene to another expository dialogue. In theory, at least the exposition logs should take its time to allow the audience to process the very important information which was already being conversed at hundred kilometers per hour. However , if he had taken his time, then perhaps thing’s wouldn’t have felt as tightly knit.
It opens up at an Opera in Kiev and throws the audience in the deep end without giving them the time to orient themselves. The Protagonist, played by the ever handsome and charismatic John David Washington, is part of a CIA team tasked to infiltrate the hall during the siege and unknowingly secure a part of the algorithm. During his breakout with the device, he is saved by a mysterious man who kills an assailant with a reversed bullet. Later on, his cover is blown and his team along with him is tortured. In an act to safeguard his mission, he bites down on a cyanide pill. This proves his loyalty to TENET, an organization he is later recruited into; to save the world from an unknown threat from the future. The protagonist was given the intel regarding the algorithm (referred to as plutonium) by his future self. He does so he could set himself on the right track― meet Niel and give the device to Sator, the antagonist, whose men did the aforementioned siege.
John David Washington is fantastic in this movie! Christopher Nolan gave him very few cues throughout it yet every scene he’s in? It seems like they had an hour-long discussion about how exactly he should act. He effortlessly embodies the role of an agent who has essentially died both in the eyes of his government and the public. Nolan seems to be playing with the idea of a replaceable protagonist to contrast traditional spy films. That’s why his past is not mentioned. We are supposed to care about him by the actions he takes in the present.
Following the trail of the inverted bullet, he goes to Mumbai for the supplier. This is when he formally meets Niel, a playful physicist portrayed by Robert Pattinson. Coming off of The Lighthouse, his performance is light and upbeat. Something I need him to do more. Against the dry delivery given by other actors, he makes the movie more enjoyable. By their conversation, we get to explore the protagonist’s psyche. He wouldn’t kidnap children but he would consider using women. This belief is later tested when he connects with Kat(Elizabeth Debicki) to further his agenda with Sator. A wealthy egomaniac who’s supposed to be inverting bullets.
Now equipped with a plan after briefly meeting Micheal Caine’s character, a man in the British intelligence, he goes to Kat. JDW’s conversation with her(intended to blackmail) is interrupted by Sator’s goons. As she’s taken away, she says, “I better leave before I care one way or another.” Contrary to her words, she does care. Her previous conversation didn’t only bring back the reality of her painful life but also in her heart, it pains her to drag another “good” person in the malicious world of her husband’s. She’s already partly responsible for bringing her son into it, the consequences of which she is still suffering from. The goons are here to kill John. It is the result of the protagonist meeting her, directed to pain her further by the ever-controlling Andrei(Kenneth Branagh). This is emphasized by how her driver does not leave till she sees John fall down those flights of stairs, his suit smeared in blood. However what she ends up seeing is hope as one of the thugs is thrown down instead. JDW tore through them like a professional football player in a visceral fight scene. This is what prompts her into giving him a call the next day.
Their plan is built upon and our dynamic duo enlist the help of Mahir(Himesh Patil) to dramatically crash a real (yes, REAL not CGI’D) 747 into freeport. The action scenes here are breathtaking! Bombarding the viewer with bombastic sound design by Richard King and a dangerously addictive score by Ludwig Göransson.
They want to use this diversion to look for a room where JDW suspects Andrei is manufacturing the inverted bullets. What they find instead is an inverted John David Washington from the future as he comes out of the turnstile. The two versions of the protagonist engage, the men in black fire bullets at his past self. That’s not necessarily the case though. We later find out that the man in black wanted to get into the turnstile. Since he was in an arm lock with his previous self, all he could do was fire with an intention to miss so that they could move towards the machine.
By this point John David Washington’s character is defined. He is witty, selfless, compassionate, and has the will to fight for something beyond himself which slips by most of us in the first watch-through. In the second viewing, we get this larger understanding of these characters in relation to the physical and emotional conflict of this world. His relationship with Kat is also not the generic hero falls in love with damsel in distress, the very nature of their relationship makes it impossible for that to happen. He wants to give her a life of freedom in which she can raise her son. Him being a dead agent will only draw attention to her. The best he can do is protect her from afar. No matter how much either of them want it to be otherwise.
Elizabeth Debicki plays the role of an abused wife who is chained to a toxic marriage. Sator not only tortures her physically but also uses her son along with a sketch made by her previous lover, to imprison her emotionally. If she tries to leave, he threatens to destroy her credibility in the art circle she works in. So, as much as the decision to bear the anguish enlisted upon her by the abuser seems like a choice…it isn’t. During the Vietnam trip, the original Kat goes away with her son and the inverted one takes her place to seduce him. In doing so, she perhaps starts falling for the man, who is essentially unlovable, again…that’s the hold he has over her. Then in all her rage, the moment of ultimate catharsis occurs. As the original Kat is returning, reversed Kat kills her husband, dumps him into water and dives herself. This is heart wrenching! The one moment where Kat thinks she connected with her husband, a moment she has bittersweet memories for yet she holds so dear, is not organic. It’s fabricated to buy time for our heroes because Sator has the doomsday device.
Sator is the weakest link in this film. It has nothing to do with Kenneth Branagh’s acting, It’s the writing. Every line given to him feels like it was written for a trailer. Overall, while there is enough meat to sink your teeth into with other characters, his motivations seem shallow for the world-breaking threat he represents. “If I can’t have her, then no one can” is the most primal motivation a human can have to be destructive. Stretch it to that ridiculous scale and it stops working.
In the final act the TENET crew is planning to fool Andrei(Kenneth Barnagh) into believing that he was successful in burying the algorithm, so his past self doesn’t alter his plans and history keeps on repeating. After another action-heavy scene(which looks like a technical nightmare to film), they are successful in taking the device out albeit not without losses(RIP Niel). Aaron Taylor Johnson’s character says that they can’t have anyone left alive who knows what the algorithm is, enforcing the idea in the protagonist’s mind that he shares his ideals. A quality which will make the protagonist recruit Ives later in his future. Niel, the man who had traveled from the future and is actually an old friend to ‘the’ Protagonist, says his goodbye and solidifies the theme of this movie for me.
“what happens, happened. It’s an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world.” …It’s important to have faith in the working of the world but not to use it as an excuse to do nothing. To not let our past define us or our present bring us down. We will never know where we will be then but we know where we are now…so build a future not only for yourself but the people you don’t even know yet. Because if you don’t.. they will create a device to reverse the entropy of the world and come back to destroy us instead.
