One of the most revered filmmakers working today is Christopher Nolan, a man who makes dark, complex, challenging, time-twisting tales that have captured our national imagination. I thought the “Dark Knight” trilogy was overrated, but loved Inception; I didn’t care for Dunkirk, and, frankly, I don’t much like Tenet either. Shakespeare, I think, said it best in Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Christopher Nolan’s film follows a Protagonist (John David Washington) as he survives his own death, is assigned to unlock a global conspiracy with just one clue — the word “tenet” — and save a nice woman (Elizabeth Debicki) from her crazy Russian husband (Kenneth Branagh), who, by the way, also wants to destroy the world. It is part spy movie, part twisty science-fiction thriller, part action adventure and all impressively filmed with real effects, not computer-generated stuff. Actually, the behind-the-scenes stuff involving crashing the plane, having the actors and stunt people speak and move backwards is more entertaining than the movie.
Supposedly a physicist was consulted to ensure that the science fiction was, indeed, scientific, up to a point. Big deal. I lost genuine interest in the story during the “inverted” sequence on the highway — not the first time, but the second time, when things were being explained (sort of). Nolan and his team obviously put a great deal of time, money, thought and effort into making all this seem believable (some would say smart, or even brilliant), but I just finally didn’t care. And there is a whole lot more to get through before a huge, completely nonsensical battle is staged and the drama finally winds up. I had a headache and was glad to get out of the theater back to normal time. Even our tragic current time.
Nolan’s $205 million dollar film had the misfortune to be derailed by the coronavirus; it has grossed just over $50 million in America. Normally I don’t care about a film’s grosses; I prefer discussing its qualities. Now this film is certainly one worth discussing (it is eminently watchable, at least up until the climax), but I am not sorry it has become a financial failure. It is big, loud, overlong and stupid (sorry, I don’t buy the physics, which are, admittedly, way over my head) in ways that truly boggle my mind. Its hyperactive sound patterns smash much of the dialogue into mush, while its paper-thin characters are continually trying to make sense of what is going on all around them. Me, too. My rating: ☆ ☆. 29 October 2020.