Tenet: Six things you need to know about the most anticipated film of the year

The most anticipated film of the year (well, since Bond slunk to an autumn release) is out today. And Christopher Nolan’s new offering is a typical head-scratcher. To help you through it, here are six things you need to know about Tenet.

1) It’s an intelligence test

One of the main characters, Neil (Robert Pattinson), has a Masters degree in physics. Viewers foolish enough to pursue the Humanities in their youth will struggle to understand a word Neil says. After the screening, smart-alec kids are likely to pester parents with questions along the lines of “What’s a temporal pincer movement?”, “Can you really invert an object’s entropy?” and “Doesn’t the sequence where the pretty lady goes back to Vietnam flout the scientific logic of everything that’s gone before?” Adults should assert their authority by declaring, “These are SUCH good questions! Now who’s for a socially distanced Mickey D’s?”

2) If you like heroes with sensible names, it will drive you up the wall

Tenet is crammed with useful info: F50 Catamarans are deadly! So are cheese graters! What it’s short on is a hero with a good, old-fashioned moniker. Our protagonist (John David Washington) is a CIA spy who refers to himself as “The Protagonist”. He’s never called anything else. What happens when someone needs to email him? Do they send encrypted messages to theprotagonist@gmail.com?

3) It’s a tall tale

Our heroine, played by Elizabeth Debicki, is smart and passionate with good taste in art, not to mention books (at one point, we see her reading a novel by Ali Smith). Still, it would be unwise to view Kat as a role model. During a car chase, which sees Kat tied up in the back seat of a locked and moving vehicle, she uses her stiletto-clad foot to release the switch on the car’s front door. This only works because she is 6ft 3ins. Were a woman of average height to attempt a similar manoeuvre, it would surely end badly.

4) Neither in the past, present or future is shopping at Primark an option

A British secret agent, Sir Michael Crosby (Sir Michael Caine), gives The Protagonist some sartorial-advice, noting that a Brooks Brothers suit won’t impress billionaires (The Protagonist was “on a budget”). Presumably, Brooks Brothers were paid handsomely to be pegged as the bargain hunter’s option. Either way, the next outfit worn by The Protagonist is bespoke to the max and probably cost as much as most of us earn in a year. Meanwhile, Kat, in her crisp haute couture, makes Grace Kelly look like a bag lady.

5) Tomorrow’s People are angry

It transpires that a group of individuals, living in the future, are cross with everyone in the past, because we’re wrecking the planet and drying up the seas (can’t argue with that). Though we never see anyone from this cabal, they probably look a bit like Greta Thunberg.

6) None of this matters because you still won’t understand it

Washington recently described Tenet as an “in-law” to Inception, but it’s not clear why. It can’t be a sequel, unless the events in it are actually part of a dream, from which the dreamer never awakes. Sometimes the dialogue is hard to decipher (NOT to be confused with those moments where the dialogue is incomprehensible; see point 1) because the characters often wear masks and we all know how much that helps. Still, I’ve been told that the film only clicks into place once you’ve seen it three times, and having spent five hours of my life watching it, I can definitely confirm that the more you know, the more you want to know. Happy viewing!

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