Tenet Movie Ending Explained (In Detail)
Spoilers Alert:
The whole world is waiting for TENET — in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, the director once again devotes himself to his favorite topic of time. But after masterpieces like “Memento,” “Interstellar” and “Dunkirk,” this one turns out to be a lazy spell. We reveal more about this in our review.
OT: Tenet (UK/USA 2020)
The plot summary
The entire world is on the brink of destruction when a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) gets his hands on new technology. In order to prevent the impending Third World War, a nameless investigator (John David Washington), who only calls himself “the protagonist”, goes on an adventurous rescue mission. He has a single word at his disposal for this: Tenet. He quickly learns what it’s all about: someone recently made the discovery that they could reverse time. The process is called inversion and means that objects can move contrary to their original state — i.e. backwards. And people may have already succeeded in doing this. So the protagonist uses this method for himself. At his side is his ally Neil (Robert Pattinson), who seems to know more than he lets on. Can he trust him? And will the two of them succeed in saving the world?
criticism
“Tenet” has become a symbol of how the Corona crisis has influenced the cinema landscape. Due to cinemas being closed worldwide, numerous films were sold off on streaming platforms and others were pushed back. The distributors have completely removed a large number of their projects from their original release radius — in some cases from 2020 to 2021 or even further. In the case of Christopher Nolan’s latest film, however, the studio Warner Bros. remained committed to a wide release this summer; not least at the urging of Christopher Nolan himself, who also expressly spoke out against VOD exploitation. Since June 13th there have been new news almost every week that “Tenet” was going to be shown later than the original July 17th and always presented new start dates that were discarded shortly afterwards. So now it was the end of August (it is questionable whether it would have stayed that way if we had known beforehand that the second wave of the epidemic was currently in full swing) and with that Nolan heralds something that is best described as post-corona era. Will a mega-blockbuster like “Tenet” — the most expensive film adaptation of an original story of all time — finally succeed in getting viewers back to the movie theaters? At least this question cannot be answered in advance. But at least whether Nolan has achieved another cinema milestone. The answer to that is: no. Because for the first time in his career, the British native has completely lost his way here. The constant emphasis that “Tenet” can’t be understood anyway doesn’t help.
Neil (Robert Pattinson) tells the protagonist (John David Washington) about his plan.
When the way so-called inversion works is explained to the protagonist in an early scene, the scientist opposite him is persuaded to say that it is not about understanding, but only about feeling. This is a clear message that is repeated several times throughout the film. For example, when the character of Neil, played by Robert Pattinson, is faced with the so-called grandfather paradox (how can a time traveler in the past kill his grandfather if by doing so he actually prevents his own existence — and thus the possibility of committing this act in the first place? ) reported. But instead of providing an explanation for this, Neil leaves it at that: this is exactly what the word suggests: paradox. And so Christopher Nolan, who is also responsible for the script, continually maneuvers himself around any possibility of internal logical questioning. Of course, it’s easy to count out a film whose core theme is to completely undermine the limits of physics based on its supposed plot holes; Nolan skeptics in particular regularly use this method to deny his films any substance. In the case of “Tenet”, however, it is not so much a question of whether and to what extent the process of the time reversal mechanism called inversion is even logical. It’s about the fact that Christopher Nolan constantly ignores his self-imposed rules and therefore fails to build a coherent film world for 150 minutes.
“In “Tenet,” director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan continually maneuvers himself around any possibility of internal logical questioning.”
In plain language, this means that it is almost impossible to understand “Tenet” in its entirety — and not because the story itself is so complex. The story is not told in a particularly convoluted manner, nor is there a lack of effort to occasionally feed the viewer with scientific explanations that apply within the film. Instead, it’s the constant contradictions that Nolan throws into his film’s legs whenever it’s just about to pick itself up. Of course, it’s difficult to reveal too much about this without revealing too much of the film’s plot. Therefore, at this point we will leave you with two examples that have different effects on the film as a whole. On the one hand, the numerous narrative incoherences cause massive problems of understanding. For example, a physicist explains to the protagonist what exactly inversion actually means and what you have to do to use the technology. When, just a few moments later, the main character does exactly the opposite of his instructions and the inversion still works, you don’t know early on which self-imposed rule you should stick to — the statement that the scientist then made and has already quoted can’t understand all of this, but has to feel it, and under these circumstances no longer seems smug and tongue-in-cheek, but rather mocking and arrogant.
Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) is bullied and psychologically tormented by her husband (Kenneth Branagh).
Elsewhere, however, the contradictory statements have no impact on the overall understanding of the action, but can still be exposed as a deception. Claims like these, that anyone who moves back in time suddenly has “headwinds at their backs,” may not be physically far-fetched (that is hardly possible because the rules within the film are constantly being interpreted differently judge). But if you have a headwind at your back, you shouldn’t feel it at least, since the directions of movement of wind and people don’t intersect — but the protagonist should prepare for the fact that this feeling will feel strange. Pretty silly.
Kat and the protagonist on the way to their next mission.
Let’s summarize: Because Christopher Nolan chooses not to set any boundaries or tear them down again immediately afterwards, he gives himself carte blanche to simply do whatever creates the greatest spectacle. That’s not a bad thing per se — Michael Bay’s films basically work in the same way and you can have a lot of fun with them once you get to grips with them. But “Tenet” doesn’t work with the “I’ll just do what I feel like doing and either you swallow it or leave it alone!” attitude because, unlike Bay, it constantly tries to give theoretical explanations. To stick with this example: If Bay in “Transformers” has three sunsets in one day, then that is completely legitimate as long as he sees it as a style-over-stubstance-Gaga motif that serves the sole purpose of To make the film look hotter. However, if a character were to declare at the beginning of the film that there are no three sunsets per day in this world, they would have set a limit that the film would break with the (uncommented) occurrence of three sunsets per day. Then these would no longer be a pure style over substance decision, but would be relevant to the plot — and the film would be contradictory in itself. Michael Bay would be laughed at for such obvious plot holes; He doesn’t even make it his mission to put forward physical theories in his film. Christopher Nolan, on the other hand, practices scientific explanation with “Tenet” — and can therefore be laughed at in this case.
“Because Christopher Nolan chooses not to set any boundaries or tear them down again immediately afterwards, he gives himself carte blanche to simply do whatever can create the greatest spectacle.”
Now this is by no means the first time that Christopher Nolan has experimented with the topic of time. Different chronologies and relative perceptions of time played a major role, particularly in “Memento”, “Interstellar” and “Dunkirk”. Since for us time is something that cannot be varied in real life — it just flows forward, second by second, minute by minute, day by day — playing around with it is often accompanied by mindfucks; Christopher Nolan perfected it. Seen this way, it cannot even be ruled out that there is indeed an all-encompassing inner-logical explanation for him, a kind of chronology — which, if you believe various statements by the “Tenet” actors, only he seems to understand. But as a gift, you see Nolan as a limitless visionary; Even David Lynch deliberately closes his eyes to explanations of his films, primarily wanting to let the audience “feel” them. But here a point of criticism comes into play, which relates not to the content, but to the form of the film: “Tenet” is told in a way that is confused and half-baked, even apart from its — let’s put it kindly: incomplete — story , which you don’t want to untangle by watching it several times (keyword: Lynch, Aronofsky and so on), but in a way that spoils your fun.
Nolan doesn’t just throw a tangled ball of yarn at his audience’s feet to untangle; This tangle consists of barbed wire and so many individual parts that after the painful unraveling you have to glue it together to get something out of it. This hurts some more than others — and if you’re really smart, you’ll wear gloves and maybe even have a lot of fun. But if Christopher Nolan loses his viewers with “Tenet”, in this case it is not the viewer’s fault, but the film itself.
The salvation of the world is at stake.
“Tenet” begins with a scene in an opera — a boldly staged action inferno that is particularly great in the cinema when the volume is turned up to full volume. A damn dynamic opener, almost reminiscent of James Bond, that immediately draws the audience into the film. When the setting changes shortly afterwards and we see the consequences of the previously shown events, the connections become clearer. But it also offers a foretaste of the structure that will be retained below: In a certain set piece, one (action) scene massively advances the plot, then the next one follows, and then the next follows again; In between, no time is even taken to address the consequences of the previous one; neither for the story nor for the characters involved. These numerous jumps in place and time (straight forward, by the way — “Tenet” completely avoids flashbacks or other “Memento”-like gimmicks that could get you confused) reveal a clear disinterest in everything that doesn’t bang, rumble or otherwise annoy the viewer should elicit amazement. Dialogues assume knowledge that you don’t have, the characters are a means to an end. It is a real admission of guilt that the main character, portrayed by John David Washington (“BlackKklansman”) in a rather simple way (even the discovery of inversions leaves him absolutely cold, which in turn is more of a script oversight) is only called “the protagonist” here .
“In a particular set piece, one (action) scene massively advances the plot, followed immediately by the next one, and then the next one; In between, no time is even taken to address the consequences of the previous one, neither for the story nor for the characters involved.
His job is to move things forward — and that’s it. He doesn’t even get a hint of a backstory, which means that until the end you don’t care whether he survives the events. The same applies to all the supporting characters; Stars like Michael Caine (“The Dark Knight”) only act as cues anyway. Kenneth Branagh (“Murder on the Orient Express”) makes a passable villain who could get more out of his role if the script hadn’t fobbed him off with a standard omnipotence motivation and Robert Pattinson (“The Lighthouse”) is the only one in the cast who does the only right thing: And during his performance he smugly smiles away the empty phrases that “Tenet” consists of between his (just pseudo-?) scientific explanations. He even gets a few likeable and amusing one-liners, making himself the secret star of the film.
Christopher Nolan blew up a real plane for “Tenet.”
These have all been pretty harsh words so far about a film that the world is probably expecting more than any other in 2020 — and, given the current cinema situation, absolutely needs. And it’s precisely for this reason that the virtues of “Tenet” should in no way be swept under the rug — because if Christopher Nolan sought to create the most opulent screen spectacle possible at the expense of narrative coherence, then he definitely succeeded. According to Nolan himself, the film, which cost over 200 million dollars, has “fewer CGI effects than a standard RomCom” — other sources even say “none at all”. It’s hard to tell what exactly is true, which in itself is a huge compliment. Because even if computer trick technology is used in “Tenet”, it cannot be recognized as such. And that doesn’t just mean that Nolan exploded a real plane (!) in a scene that caused a particular stir, but that everything, absolutely everything about “Tenet” has a feel that leaves no doubt about it that things are actually constantly being blown up here. It’s a shame, especially after the spectacular trailers, that Nolan does surprisingly little with what he chose as a unique selling point for “Tenet”: the time running in different directions. The moments in which movement sequences take place backwards are few and far between — and unfortunately most of them were wasted for the trailer. It was revealed in advance that most of the action scenes were shot twice, running backwards and forwards. If something is done with this extra effort, spectacular motifs are created, such as a house that collapses and is rebuilt shortly afterwards. But for a film with such a unique, visual variety of time sequences, “Tenet” has become an excellently tricked, but still conventional, action film.
“The moments in which movement sequences take place backwards are few and far between — and unfortunately most of them were wasted on the trailer.”
Last but not least, let’s take a look at probably the best aspect: the music. Hans Zimmer, who had previously left “Tenet” for his work on “Dune”, left the field to his colleague Ludwig Göransson (“Creed II”) , who went one better on the powerful Nolan scores of his predecessor. All musical motifs immediately stick in your ear and provide almost all scenes with a driving dynamic that raises the film — at least acoustically — to a completely new level of intensity. What the characters and the plot cannot do, Göransson single-handedly makes up for. In addition to the music, the images from Nolan’s regular cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema are also as strong as ever, as he is one of the few cameramen who has the self-confidence to simply go further away with his camera and observe the hustle and bustle from a distance instead of being in the middle of it to fall in. No, from an audiovisual point of view, “Tenet” cannot be criticized at all. If such qualities could also be found on other levels, Nolan would probably have made one of the best films of all time. So it’s just lazy magic.
Nothing works without an oxygen device.
Conclusion: Big mouth, nothing behind it — Christopher Nolan’s latest film “Tenet” tries to disguise the fact that the author and director has mercilessly spoiled the story with an outstanding, technical production. However, this doesn’t work because he constantly admits this himself in his film. But his probably self-confident “You won’t understand it anyway, so feel it!” attitude comes across as thoroughly arrogant. For the first time in his career, Nolan has no answer to the accusation that his film is a deception. Any other director would have had a film like “Tenet” mercilessly thrown at him.
“Tenet” can be seen in USA cinemas nationwide from August 26th.
