A spoiler-free review of 'Tenet': Oh my...
No Content for Old Men
with Matt Craig
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week's newsletter: My SPOILER FREE review of TeneT, the most anticipated movie of 2020. I grapple a bit more with my relationship to Christopher Nolan in this week's streaming recommendations, and then in this week's "Trailer Watch" we've got a new courtroom drama from Aaron Sorkin. Sound the alarm.
Word Count: 983 words
Reading time: 5 minutes
TeneT
One of the defining moments of my movie fandom occurred the instant I figured out I was allowed to not like Christopher Nolan movies.
The year was 2014, the movie was Interstellar, and as a newly converted cinephile I remember feeling the need to defend it to my family, who walked out of the theater and started cracking up at how ridiculous it was. Nolan, then and now, represented the pinnacle of high budget, auteur-driven moviemaking, so I came to his defense on principle. After spending a few weeks trekking through the Nolan filmography, in a moment of glorious release, I finally felt the freedom to admit the director's work wasn't for me.
Until about a month ago, I would've said Nolan has this same hold over the entire moviegoing public. Anecdotally, it seems like every time I ask someone who doesn't watch many movies what their favorite movie is, they'll say Inception or The Dark Knight. His movies do crazy business at the box office, and spawn a cultish fandom online.
That's why his latest, TeneT, was tabbed as the industry's white knight, set to ride in and save movie theaters from utter destruction. Nolan himself has been one of the most vocal defenders of the theater experience, antagonizing Netflix in the process, a take that became more "old man yells at cloud" with each passing day in the year 2020. But he had the goods. Even as the release date kept getting pushed back, TeneT's earning potential was spoken about in reverential tones.
Finally, the movie was dropped overseas and in select cities (crucially, not Los Angeles or New York). It flopped so hard domestically that Warner Brothers yanked their other 2020 tentpole Wonder Woman 1984 off the calendar, and Disney is expected to follow with Marvel's Black Widow and Pixar's Soul.
Maybe the underperformance is a message that the public is not ready to rush back into theaters during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic -- which would be, quite frankly, the first sign in that direction on this kind of scale all year -- or the great Christopher Nolan spell has finally been broken.
That spell analogy is actually probably the most useful way to talk about Nolan. I like to compare him to the legendary magician duo Penn and Teller. If you've ever see P&T perform, at a show or on YouTube or on their TV show "Fool Us," you know their whole shtick is that they're going to "explain" the magic as they're performing it. Of course the explanation turns out to be a misdirection, leading to a surprising reveal, but we respond to the manipulation with an even greater sense of wonder.
That's basically the exact experience of watching Tenet, which I did this past week from the relative safety of my own car at the South Bay Drive-In in San Diego. Did I drive four-and-a-half hours for a two-and-a-half hour movie? Yes, I did. These are the things I do for my beloved readers.
Anyway. This, like many Nolan scripts, is an intricate, convoluted puzzle box. A novel-length plot summary couldn't explain to you what is actually happening, but the sequencing is pretty consistent: we get an unbelievably scaled and executed set piece (such as a chase or a heist or a battle) that leads to a big and confusing reveal, followed by a debrief scene in which two characters spill exposition in a doomed attempt to explain what's happening. It's followed by another set piece, followed by another debrief.
In classic Nolan fashion, the exposition debriefs turn out to be misdirection for later reveals, all building toward some giant twist revelation at the end. When done correctly, like in Memento, we're so blown away that we forget and forgive everything that came before and cheer and clap and say wow, that Christopher Nolan guy, or that Penn and Teller, what a genius.
I was actually ready to do that at the end of TeneT, not so much because I was impressed by the trick but because I was floored by the spectacle. In a micro-sense, the movie is complicated to the point of being incomprehensible, but in a macro-sense, it's pretty easy to follow. John David Washington plays a James Bond-like figure, globetrotting on a mission to save the world from destruction.
The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, the suits are immaculate, the settings are exotic, and the action set pieces are awesome. It was like a hit of blockbuster dope for an addict like myself going through withdrawals. Plus, Nolan's movies are huge, they're original, and they're for adults, which means at this particular moment in movie history they should be graded on a curve.
Especially because this particular entry is Nolan's most self-aware and least self-serious, making it a sympathetic target. Like how in every Nolan movie, one character is made to look exactly like Nolan himself, but here Robert Pattinson is unafraid to get weird with it. (Side note: Pattinson continues to be the most interesting A-list actor in Hollywood.) Kenneth Branagh has the Bond villain meter turned all the way up to 11, and Washington has a few laugh lines that are so surprising in a Nolan movie they feel like a blooper (which makes them even funnier). Michael Cain shows up for one scene just to make fun of rich British people. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Nocturnal Animals, Anna Karenina) appears a good 100 minutes in to bark orders and call Washington a "cowboy."
All of which is to say, this is a big, dumb blockbuster. Even if you need a PhD in theoretical physics in order to understand what's happening. Kick back and enjoy it, as safely and as soon as you can wherever you live.
To quote the movie itself, "Don't try to understand it. Feel it."
Because it might be the last blockbuster you see for a very long time.
Streaming Suggestions!
Something New
The Devil All the Time (Netflix): I decided to hold off on reviewing this movie until I could give it the full-length treatment next week, but I'm certainly more than a little intrigued by a prestige-y drama from an unknown filmmaker that somehow wrangled a very fun cast: Tom Holland (literally the most in-demand actor in Hollywood right now), Robert Pattinson (the A-lister making the most interesting choices in Hollywood), Bill Skarsgard (last seen as the Clown in IT), Sebastian Stan (people tell me he's the Winter Soldier in Marvel movies?), Eliza Scalen (one of the Little Women!) and Riley Keough (Logan Lucky, It Comes At Night). Can't wait! Check it out this week and come ready for next Friday's newsletter.
Away (Netflix): In its mission to be all things for all people, I'm not necessarily surprised Netflix whipped up a weepy drama to take on behemoth network hits like "This is Us." And while this show isn't for me, I do like how it never tries to disguise its emotional manipulation. Plus, because Netflix is printing money at this point, the show landed a legit star like Hilary Swank in the lead and makes its production looks like it cost many millions of dollars. After all, it's just paper!
Something Old
Memento (2000): If you've already seen this movie, or had its gimmicky conceit spoiled for you, then I doubt you'll derive too much pleasure in revisiting it, though it's hard to believe Nolan's arrival feature is now 20 years old. However, on the off chance you've never heard of this movie or don't know anything about it, oh baby do I have a recommendation for you. This is easily Nolan's most formally inventive and cleverly executed movie, pulling off a magic trick that's actually worth its incredibly loud set up. The confines of a smaller budget keeps Nolan more focused, bringing this movie in at under two hours and without the usual flashy rabbit trails.
Something to Stream
Dunkirk ($$$): I realize this is a bit of cheat since this movie recently got removed from the HBO library and now you have to drop a couple bucks to rent it, but I had to include it here because as I spent time revisiting and thinking about Nolan's career this week I realized this is probably my favorite of his movies (unfortunately The Dark Knight did not end at the 90-min mark). The Nolan magic trick is still present, but the rest of the presentation has been stripped down to its bear essentials. No explanations, no philosophizing, no exposition. It's a visceral war movie experience that Trojan Horses in a great story. It's peak Nolan.
Trailer Watch: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Aaron Sorkin and courtrooms go together like peanut butter and jelly. And even though the "The West Wing" and A Few Good Men writer botched his first directorial effort (Molly's Game), I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this politically-charged drama with a cast that's literally too good to long to list out. Evidently, the limit does not exist on glossy 1960s retrospectives. And the best news of all is that this movie is being distributed by Netflix, so we're guaranteed to actually be able to see it this year! Woo!