My Trek to See Tenet

• 6 Sep 2020
• Posted by Christy
•   Reviews

If there’s a better metaphor for 2020 than John David Washington wearing a mask and wandering through a disorienting world where time moves backward, I don’t know what it is.

Yes, “Tenet” is finally in theaters — at least in some theaters, in some parts of the country — after the coronavirus forced Warner Bros. to delay its release repeatedly over the past few months. If you listen to our Breakfast All Day podcast, you know it’s a topic we talk about weekly: when “Tenet” should open, whether “Tenet” should open, what would make us feel comfortable going to see “Tenet” once it does open. My dear friends and co-hosts, Alonso Duralde and Matt Atchity, both have said with great certainty that for health reasons, they’re just not ready to return to this place we all love and miss, even for Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated, mind-bending blockbuster. The studio didn’t make it available to us at home through a screener link, as was the case with other big summer movies that went straight to streaming like “Mulan” and “Trolls World Tour.” “Tenet” would only be available in theaters. Nolan is famously a huge proponent of the theatrical experience, an instinct I normally agree with and appreciate. He wants people to see his films the way he intended, even this one — especially this one, perhaps — and the studio has stood by him as he stood his ground.

As movie theaters have reopened slowly nationwide over the past few weeks with elaborate safety protocols in place, “Tenet” has become a line in the sand for us to cross as critics and film lovers. Several of my friends and colleagues, including Ty Burr at The Boston Globe and Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post, have written thoughtfully about why they would not be reviewing “Tenet.” Theaters in Los Angeles County remain closed (as do our schools, to my fifth-grader’s dismay), so this isn’t a question I’ve had to ponder much. But then I learned that theaters are open again in San Diego County, and I could catch “Tenet” — and hopefully not the virus — at the Regal in Oceanside, 86 miles to the south. It’s playing there on the majority of screens, from noon until 10pm, alongside the few other titles that debuted theatrically: “The New Mutants,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” “Unhinged.”

This may end up being an unhinged decision on my part in retrospect, but I decided to make the drive on Saturday afternoon. I’ve loved many of Nolan’s movies, including “Memento,” “Inception” and “Dunkirk,” and wanted to see “Tenet” for professional edification. But I also was curious to see what the experience would be like. It had been six months since I’d gone to the movies. my longest stretch ever. The last thing I saw was “The Hunt” on Thursday, March 12, the night before the world shut down. (And as I walked out of the theater afterward, I got the email saying schools would be closed for the next three weeks. We were so optimistic back then.) Like the other big chains, Regal is limiting seating and spacing people out to allow room for social distancing. Audience members (and employees) must wear masks — at least to enter the building. Taking them off to enjoy candy and soda is problematic, however. Every other sink in the bathroom is blocked off and if folks want to buy concessions, they have to do so through a Plexiglass screen. I felt like it was an educated risk: that at 230pm on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in a beach town, not a lot of people would be going to the movies. I’d heard enough anecdotes from people who’d gone to see “Tenet” and had the whole auditorium to themselves. I’d pick my seat ahead of time in the section of the theater where my friends and I always sit — far away in the back right corner. I’d go in, watch the movie with my mask on the whole time, not eat a bite or drink a sip and leave immediately. (Well, with a visit to the ladies room before hitting the road for the trek back. “Tenet” is two and a half hours long, after all.)

Was it worth it? Not really. Sitting in stopped beach traffic on the 5 Freeway near San Onofre during the beginning of this seven-hour, round-trip ordeal, I began thinking, in the words of Gob Bluth on “Arrested Development,” “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Feelings of doubt started creeping in: Did I need to do this? Right now? Once I found parking and got to the theater, late (but not too late, thanks to that 25-minute time cushion of trailers at Regal theaters), the masked manager behind the concession stand scanned the bar code on the ticket I’d had texted to my phone. I walked in, went right up to the top and found my seat. There were only about 20 people scattered throughout the large auditorium. But I quickly moved when I saw there was someone a few seats down from me in my row, a little too close for comfort. Then I moved again to the absolute back corner when I noticed a guy two rows in front of me with his mask off entirely, munching away on his popcorn. As I caught the last two trailers — for “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Dune” — I pulled my glasses out of my purse, grabbed a pen, opened my notepad and began to settle in. But it still didn’t feel “normal.” Maybe it was the stress of the drive, maybe it was the anxiety of the whole scenario, but this return to the movie theater was not the joyous experience I’d expected. I was edgy, distracted, even a little discombobulated.

But perhaps that’s the right state to be in for “Tenet,” which drops you right into the action from the get-go and doesn’t let up from there. This isn’t going to be a full-on review because I want people to experience the movie for themselves — if they do indeed feel comfortable returning to the theater — and I don’t want anything to be construed as a spoiler. I will say that “Tenet” is one of my least-favorite Nolan films: chilly and cerebral to the extreme, constantly explaining the mechanics behind its back-and-forth time-travel structure but still managing to remain completely baffling. Washington is charismatic as hell as a CIA agent who gets dragged into a seemingly impossible assignment, but he’s laden with reams of dialogue opposite Robert Pattinson as his protector and guide and Elizabeth Debicki as the woman trapped in an abusive marriage to the movie’s bad guy.

“Don’t try to understand it. Feel it,” says Clemence Poesy as the scientist who introduces to Washington’s character the phenomenon of inversion that’s central to the plot. And that’s probably good advice for us, as well. In its absolute simplest terms, “Tenet” is Nolan’s James Bond film. Washington is the dashing secret agent, and the movie takes time to note the quality of suits he wears, his preferred drink order and the fact that he can be elegant and lethal simultaneously. Kenneth Branagh seems intentionally over-the-top as the heavily accented Russian oligarch who’s hell-bent on the kind of world destruction that might have seemed novel and terrifying in the 1960s. Along those lines, references to a cold war are scattered throughout Nolan’s script, which he wrote this time without his frequent collaborator, his brother, Jonathan. And Debicki brings sophistication and wit as the statuesque stunner with whom Washington shares a spark.

But such recognizably human sparks are few here, even in the film’s enormous set pieces, which have the kind of substance and ingenuity we’ve come to expect from this filmmaker. They can be thrilling, as in the scene where a massive Norwegian cargo plane barrels into an airport, dropping gold bricks on the tarmac along the way in what feels like a wink to the movie’s $225 million budget. A lengthy chase along a highway, with cars trying to out-maneuver each other while moving both forward and in reverse, is also breathtaking. But during these moments and so many others, it’s difficult to get completely engrossed in them because questions constantly hang overhead: Why is this happening? What are we doing here? And tell me again why that orange briefcase matters? Even compared to the twisty time-tweaking that has become Nolan’s signature, “Tenet” is complicated on a whole ‘nother level, and needlessly so. It almost feels intentionally off-putting, this challenge he’s placed before us. It’s definitely a distraction: We’re thinking so hard, trying to figure out what we’re seeing that we can’t actually enjoy what we’re seeing.

The performances are universally strong. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is crisp and rich. Jennifer Lame’s editing keeps the action moving spiritedly. The score from Ludwig Goransson is innovative and tense. All the top-notch pieces are in place, just as Nolan’s fans would want them to be. But “Tenet” doesn’t feel like it was made for other people; it feels like Nolan made it to entertain himself. As for the puzzle of whether to venture out to the theater to see it yourself, that’s up to everyone individually, depending on your level of health and comfort. If you go, please be safe. Wear a mask and maintain social distance. But as I wrote in a text to Matt and Alonso as I was leaving the theater, I could have waited.