Tenet
Might contain spoilers.
A brilliant film. This is Christopher Nolan at his best, and the execution of the reversed sections is truly astounding. I can’t wait to see more of John David Washington after his turn as the protagonist. Robert Pattinson’s performance is superb as well. Really, apart from a forgettable Dimple Kapadia, the cast is uniformly fantastic—I didn’t even recognize Aaron Taylor-Johnson (or Kenneth Branagh, but that’s more me being a little slow).
The concept is instantly fascinating, with an obvious relationship to the format of Memento . It’s easy to understand but a tad hard to keep track of during the film. That said, complaints that Tenet is hard to follow are missing the forest for the trees: the minutiæ of time reversal are not the story.
The score is excellent. I assumed it was Hans Zimmer taking cues from Ludwig Göransson right until the latter’s name was displayed in the end credits! On a somewhat related note, I saw much discussion online about the dialogue being inaudible, but I didn’t have much difficulty in that department, perhaps because I watched it at home, where I could control the volume and repeat the few moments that were unclear.[1] The only times I noticed any issues were in outdoor scenes when Dimple Kapadia spoke. For some reason, her sections of the dialogue are noticeably worse in audio quality.
The one disappointing aspect is Kat the stereotypical battered wife. Elizabeth Debicki’s pitch-perfect performance is far better than the character deserves.
- Although I would have thought that was the case for most people in pandemic times.↩