Tenet

Us Hughes boys are a sucker for a Christopher Nolan film. Grand set pieces, intricate story lines, booming soundtracks and mind-bending cinematography have become Nolan’s bread and butter. And so, its unsurprising that his latest release ‘Tenet’ delivers all those trademarks in a tense, spectacle driven spy thriller.

The story line is unsurprisingly complex. The time travel element is about as far away from Marty McFly driving a DeLorean as can be imagined and unless you have a relatively solid grasp on concepts from Physics it may leave you scratching your head. Luckily however there isn’t much time to worry about trying to understand exactly how it all works and what entropy even is, as the film ticks along with fever pitch pace. Before you know it, you end up just accepting that this is the way it works and strap yourself in for the tense, edge of you seat ride that it is.

Whilst the pace of the film doesn’t detract from the overall gripping nature of the film it does lead to one of its biggest downfalls and that is emotional outreach. Nolan’s films have always landed due to the human connection within, keeping them grounded in emotion we can process even if the world around is mind boggling. ‘Inception’ contains dream heists but underneath it’s the journey of father to reunite with his children. Similarly, the ‘Interstellar’ scene with Cooper watching the years of video from his children is quite easily the best scene in the film. Unfortunately, Tenet doesn’t capture anywhere near the heart of these plot lines and leaves you feeling a little hollow upon the resolution of the film.

If you can accept the time travel element of the film as above, it does lead to some breath-taking visuals. Pairing up with Nolan for the third time following ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Dunkirk’, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema produces visuals that are as mend bending to comprehend as they are to watch. Like Roger Deakins work in ‘1917’ you will be left racking your brain to comprehend just quite how action sequences are put together. Fight scenes with forward and backward moving elements to this scale is entirely unique.

The soundtrack from Ludwig Goransson is, as you would expect with any Nolan film, enormous. The crashes and pulses throughout actions sequences had my ears and cinema seat ringing. It added a brilliant amount of tension and excitement. However, like the storyline itself it felt like it was missing the crucial melody that ties into the heart of the film. ‘Inception’ had ‘Time’, ‘Interstellar’ had ‘Stay’ and ‘Dunkirk’ had its ‘Variation 15’ from Elgar, yet Goransson unlike the aforementioned scores from Hans Zimmer doesn’t attempt to even land anything melancholic throughout and this pairs with the overall lack of human emotion within.

Performance wise the film is strong. John David Washington manages to ooze the cool swagger that he did in ‘Blackkklansman’ and Kenneth Branagh is completely menacing in his portrayal of a Russian oligarch. Robert Pattison steals the show however and manages to nail the nuances of the mysterious British agent. (A good sign for any Batman fans)

Like many of Nolan’s features before it, Tenet will likely lead to increased enjoyment through re-watch as a general understanding of the story line will allow for a better appreciation of the vision and how it all links together. Forget what you think you know about time travel, accept that you will need time to process exactly how it all fits together and finally get in line (with your mask) to watch this on the biggest screen with the biggest speakers you can find. It truly is a spectacle, even if the film lacks that final pluck to your heart strings.

By Will