Basic tenets

Supposedly, the origin of the idea for Christopher Nolan's latest film, Tenet, is the Sator Square; a Roman word symbol of joint palindromes that's been attached to a variety of Christian and mystical beliefs over the past two millennia. Just like with the square, one can derive a number of deeper meanings from the film just by framing its approach in different ways or rearranging its story to fit whatever perspective you'd like to have. One can do that with the square because it was probably never intended to carry different meanings, but simply to present something universal. Like a tarot deck, one can attach what seems familiar and ignore the rest. The film works in the same way because it's an exercise in basic storytelling and structure with most of the action just being window dressing for those essential (ahem) tenets. The question becomes whether that's actually a good film.

The film's lead is only identified as The Protagonist. (One hearkens back to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, with a lead similarly labeled (Hiro Protagonist.)) That's because the film's story isn't really important. What's important to Nolan is how the story is told. The Protagonist is a stand-in for Nolan himself; demonstrating to the audience that the characters are just ciphers for the writer and/or director. The latter are the storytellers, with the actors serving as tools to deliver that story. This is in contrast to what films often labeled "an X vehicle" become, in which they're simply window dressing around the performance of a leading person (a Clint Eastwood vehicle, an Al Pacino vehicle, et al.) With Tenet, Nolan decided to bring us all back to film school and give us an elaborately decorated example of how basic story structure works: Here is your protagonist. Here is the conflict and the antagonists. Here is the protagonist working their way through said conflict. Resolution. Of course, the resolution in Tenet is a little murkier than many other basic stories, but the end result is essentially the same. The question for the viewer is: Was it all worth it?

That's the basic question for anyone who watches a movie, right? Was this worth my time/money/attention? The question of story is the central one to me for any film. I don't need to be wowed by special effects or blown away by a performance. Those things are good and can, in and of themselves, often make watching worthwhile. But, first and foremost, tell me a story. Even better, tell me a good story. If you can't do that, then I'm usually wasting my time, no matter how many cool explosions you put on the screen. Is the story in Tenet worthwhile? Well... yeah, if you like things broken down to their most basic elements without any particular attachment to the who and why they're being told, I guess. The reason for that very qualified answer is that the film is basically an exercise in the technique more than it is an actual story. It's an interesting exercise in a lot of ways, but it's not something that's going to produce an emotional release or any real level of excitement that one would normally associate with watching a good story.

I didn't particularly care about any of the characters in the film because they were really just ciphers. Watching them solve the elaborate puzzle constructed around the very basic plot with no motivation to do so other than the fact that the puzzle existed is kind of like watching someone else work a crossword without suggesting any answers to them. While John David Washington does well in injecting some life into the overall sterility and generates some interest in the proceedings (Is it a 'John David Washington vehicle'?), he can't possibly succeed in making anyone care about what's happening because that's not the point of the exercise. Kenneth Branagh, as stock "modern Russian villain", also doesn't help, although he's conveniently named after the aforementioned square (Andrei Sator.) Elizabeth Debicki unfortunately doesn't raise the basic exercise above cliché as the damsel in distress (Wants to protect her child, the one who gets shot and needs to be saved by the hero, yadda yadda yadda.) either. You can see all of the regular notes being played and you come back to the original question: Is it worth it? Robert Pattinson, unfortunately, is handed that irritating role where he obviously knows more than either the viewer or the protagonist but won't tell either of them what he knows in order to keep the story going. This is a phenomenon from poorly-executed roleplaying games where the gamemaster finds himself more important than the ones who really should be the stars of the show: the players.

But, again, that's largely because Tenet is a basic exercise in storytelling. There's nothing wrong with that and it's done well. I think Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors currently in the business and you can draw comparisons with previous masters like Stanley Kubrick, who were also fond of taking basic elements of the craft and creating larger spectacles around them that remained rooted in those basic elements. There's nothing wrong with that. Does it make for an "instant classic" that I would recommend to everyone? Not really. I'll probably go back and watch Tenet again because I'm a Nolan fan and I like the way he works and I'm interested in particular technical moments. But am I compelled to go back and watch it again because there are great characters and gripping, emotional moments and because it's a great story in the same manner as something like Blade Runner? No. There really aren't any of those. And I cite the latter not only because the director's cut is one of my favorite films, but also because it's a science fiction film that initially faced an uneven response from both critics and fans, despite similar appreciation for its overall quality and construction. Blade Runner grew into a cult classic and then an acknowledged classic because of its strong underlying message and the emotional underpinnings of that message. Tenet doesn't really have the former and utterly lacks the latter. It's an exercise with possibilities, just like the square.