2020 was a weird year. The fact that I’m writing about a September released movie that most people only just now watched. The fact time has lost meaning with Stay-at-home orders. The fact that the news seems to repeat. There’s a lot going on, a lot that went on. So I hope you don’t mind reading about a three month old movie.
My favorite Nolan “original” films are Memento, Dunkirk, and The Prestige. I loved Memento, it’s new way of telling it’s story. Dunkirk’s editing, the manipulation of time. The Prestige’s prestige-ness. But in a way, all of his films are like this. But these three, to me, have something different in them. Characters and relationships I care about. Nolan doesn't always pull of this trick.
His, non-IP, films have alway seem to use with deeper plot gimmicks to get people interested in coming into the theaters . Inception and Interstellar both throw you into a world that doesn’t work in the way you’re used to. Dream heists and worm holes, can bog down. Not deep in the, “I’m taking a physics course, and can’t understand this”, but in the “We’re spending too much time on these bullet points” or a “In the weeds” kind of way. A false complexity that can pull me out.
His three films I first mentioned, mess with the way information is conveyed as well, but they more smoothly make it clear that the real power of the plot is relationships. Either a wife in Memento, one’s homeland in Dunkirk, or a daughter in Prestige. Both in Inception and Interstellar, the relationships seem like an after thought.
Tenet, on the other hand, does something different. There’s no real effort to try to make any of the relationships matter, and I think this is to the benefit of the film. At many times the film throws science and terminology at you, then asks you not to worry about it. We don’t have time to. The same with relationships. Human connection? A daughter needing her father’s love? A marriage that ended tragically? We don’t have time! There’s a backwards Russian running around! Instead of stopping the plot to talk both science and a failed marriage, we just hang out in inversion land. There’s an attempt made. You could say Elizabeth Debicki’s journey to escape from her husband, who is an incredibly patient bad guy, is the emotional tissue. You could say the heart of the plot is Pattinson and Washington’s *spoiler* future friendship. Either way, the film doesn’t stop as abruptly.
Over the past few weeks, Nolan has declared the decision of Warner Brothers to release their 2021 films date-in-date to theaters and HBO Max, due to *gestures to world*, is a terrible fate to cinema. Putting the pros and cons of that decision aside, Nolan made a comment that he has a soft spot for the Fast and Furious franchise.
His storytelling choices seem to match that soft spot. Both F&F and Nolan’s films rely on the spectacle of the theater. Both have fairly large set pieces. Both try to slap “family comes first” at the end of the film to land the plot in a heartwarming place. I find that Fast and Furious is at it’s weakest when “Love is the Answer” comes into play. Nolan is hit or miss with the trope. Tenet doesn't try to make this point, and it’s stronger for it. If the theater experience is going to survive, it will probably be on the backs of spectacle movies. If all his attempts are more like Tenet, I’ll be along for the ride. At least PVOD for awhile.