BROTHERS OF FUTURE PAST
TENET:
By Kirsten Howard
Many audiences were confused by Christopher Nolan’s would-be blockbuster Tenet, but at its heart the film is just pure bromance.
Tenet may always be known as the film that tried and failed to restart the global box office in the middle of the pandemic.
Director Christopher Nolan was very keen for people to see Tenet on the big screen, but punters just weren’t ready to take the risk.
It’s unclear whether Nolan’s most expensive project really made much of a profit by following through with its planned cinema release.
Now that the film is streaming and available to a larger audience, more people are discovering Tenet than ever before.
It’s safe to say that the plot of Nolan’s movie is mind-bending and often quite complex.
Starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, Tenet follows a secret agent who must learn how to manipulate the flow of time to prevent an apocalypse.
Sounds simple enough, but its three hour runtime is filled with massive action set pieces and long scenes of dialogue explaining how the central time paradox works.
Despite a lot of exposition, many viewers have been left scratching their heads about what it all means.
Essentially, Washington’s protagonist is meeting Pattinson’s character Neil for the first time when Tenet starts, but Washington doesn’t know he is actually Neil’s boss in the future.
The pair have (and will have) planned to avert the apocalypse for a long time.
Though the twists and turns of the movie’s story weave a strange tapestry, Tenet’s core theme is the bond between the protagonist and Neil.
The pair’s burgeoning bromance anchors the film, even as the science behind it often unravels.
Neil has known for a long time that he will have to sacrifice himself to save the world and say goodbye to his best friend forever.
Some viewers might need to watch the film again to understand the real depth of the duo’s friendship.
Others might need to read a bit more about how Tenet is constructed to support its complicated physics.