Tenet (film)

Tenet
File:Tenet movie poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Christopher Nolan
Produced by	Emma Thomas Christopher Nolan
Written by	Christopher Nolan
Starring	John David Washington Robert Pattinson Elizabeth Debicki Dimple Kapadia Michael Caine Kenneth Branagh
Music by	Ludwig Göransson
Cinematography	Hoyte van Hoytema
Edited by	Jennifer Lame
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates	August 26, 2020 (2020-08-26) (United Kingdom) September 3, 2020 (2020-09-03) (United States)
Running time	150 minutes
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million
Box office	$362.9 million

Tenet is a 2020 science fiction action-thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who produced it with Emma Thomas. A co-production between the United Kingdom and United States, it stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The film follows a secret agent who learns to manipulate the flow of time to prevent an attack from the future that threatens to annihilate the present world.

Nolan took more than five years to write the screenplay after deliberating about Tenet's central ideas for over a decade. Pre-production began in late 2018, casting in March 2019, and principal photography lasted three months in Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States, from May to November. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot on 70 mm and IMAX. Scenes of time manipulation were filmed both backwards and forwards. Upwards of one hundred vessels and thousands of extras were used.

Delayed three times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tenet was released in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2020, and United States on September 3, 2020, in IMAX, 35 mm, and 70 mm. It was the first Hollywood tent-pole to open in theaters after the pandemic shutdown, and grossed $362 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2020. However, it failed to break even due to its costly production and marketing budget, losing distributor Warner Bros. Pictures as much as $100 million. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics on Metacritic, with Rotten Tomatoes saying it had "all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production."

Plot

A CIA agent, the "Protagonist", participates in an undercover operation at a Kyiv opera house. His life is saved by a masked soldier with a red trinket, who "un-fires" a bullet through a gunman. After seizing an artifact, the Protagonist is captured by mercenaries. He endures torture before consuming cyanide. He awakens to learn the cyanide was a test of loyalty; his team has been killed, and the artifact lost.

The Protagonist is recruited by an organization called Tenet. A scientist shows him bullets with "inverted" entropy, in which they move backwards through time. She believes they are manufactured in the future, and a weapon exists that can wipe out the past. Aided by a contact Neil, the Protagonist traces the bullets to arms dealer Priya Singh in Mumbai. He discovers she is a member of Tenet; her cartridges were purchased and inverted by Russian oligarch Andrei Sator.

The Protagonist approaches Sator's estranged wife Kat, an art appraiser, who authenticated a Goya drawing forged by a man, "Arepo", which Sator purchased from him; Sator uses the drawing to blackmail her and keep her under control. The Protagonist plots to steal the drawing with Neil from a facility at the Oslo Airport. There they find a machine, a "turnstile", and fend off two masked men. Priya explains the turnstile can invert the entropy of objects and people, and the masked men were the same person.

In the Amalfi Coast, Italy, Kat introduces the Protagonist to Sator, but learns the drawing is intact. The three go boating, where Kat attempts to drown Sator, but the Protagonist saves him. He offers to help Sator retrieve a case, which, he says, contains Plutonium-241. In Tallinn, the Protagonist and Neil ambush a convoy and steal the case, which contains the artifact lost in Kyiv. They are ambushed by an inverted Sator, who holds Kat hostage. The Protagonist gives Sator an empty case, and he retreats. The Protagonist saves Kat, but is captured and taken to Sator's warehouse.

The inverted Sator shoots Kat with an inverted round, while the normal Sator demands the location of the artifact; the Protagonist gives him false information. Tenet operatives led by Ives rescue the Protagonist while Sator escapes. The group take Kat through Sator's turnstile to invert her, reversing the effect of the round. The Protagonist returns to the ambush site and chases Sator. His vehicle is overturned, and set on fire; the Protagonist is saved. Neil reveals he is a member of Tenet.

The Protagonist and Neil travel back in time to the free port in Oslo. The Protagonist fights his past self and enters the turnstile and reverts, followed by Neil and Kat. Priya tells them artifacts are parts of an "algorithm", which Sator is assembling, capable of catastrophically inverting entropy.

Sator square, providing the film title, location of the opening sequence (Kyiv Opera), and character or firm names (A. Sator; Arepo the Goya forger; and Rotas Security in Oslo Freeport)

Kat reveals Sator is dying from pancreatic cancer. He will trigger the algorithm, believing the world should die with him. Kat believes Sator will kill himself during their vacation. The Protagonist, Neil, Kat, and the Tenet forces invert back to that day, so Kat can delay Sator's death, while Tenet secures the algorithm.

Tenet tracks the algorithm to Sator's hometown in Northern Siberia. In a "temporal pincer movement", red team troops move forward in time, while the blue team troops move backward. The Protagonist and Ives are aided by a masked corpse of a blue-team trooper with a red trinket on his backpack, after seeing him dying in reverse. In Vietnam, Kat boards Sator's yacht and kills him, as the Protagonist and Ives secure the algorithm.

The Protagonist, Neil, and Ives break up the algorithm and part ways. The Protagonist notices the trinket on Neil's rucksack. Neil reveals he was recruited by the Protagonist in the future and this mission is the end of a long friendship. Priya attempts to have Kat assassinated, but is killed by the Protagonist, who realizes he is the mastermind behind Tenet.

Cast

• John David Washington as the Protagonist, a CIA agent
• Robert Pattinson as Neil, the Protagonist's handler
• Elizabeth Debicki as Katherine "Kat" Barton, an art appraiser and Sator's estranged wife
• Dimple Kapadia as Priya, an arms trafficker
• Martin Donovan as Fay, the Protagonist's CIA boss
• Fiona Dourif as Wheeler, leader of Blue Team
• Yuri Kolokolnikov as Volkov, Sator's bodyguard
• Himesh Patel as Mahir, a fixer
• Clémence Poésy as Barbara, a scientist
• Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ives, a military commander
• Michael Caine as Sir Michael Crosby, a British Intelligence officer
• Kenneth Branagh as Andrei Sator, a Russian oligarch who communicates with the future
• Denzil Smith as Sanjay, Priya's husband

Production

Pre-production

Writer and director Christopher Nolan conceived the ideas behind Tenet over the course of twenty years, but began working on the script in 2014. The title is a palindrome and an allusion to the Sator Square. Nolan made a conscious effort to abstain from any influence of the spy genre other than his own memory. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) inspired the screenwriting. Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who worked with Nolan on Interstellar (2014), was consulted on the subjects of time and quantum physics. Pre-production lasted from late 2018 until early 2019, leaving department heads five months to prepare. Special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher watched World War II movies and documentaries to find reference points for realism. Production designer Nathan Crowley requested Hamilton Watch Company to manufacture around thirty military wristwatches, each analog with a digital countdown. Nolan and Crowley traveled to scout for locations in February and April 2019. Disappointed with the Royal Swedish Opera as a potential spot for the Kyiv Opera House, Crowley switched it to the Linnahall, which fit his affinity for Brutalist architecture. Shree Vardhan Tower was chosen instead of Antilia, as the latter had too high security; the National Liberal Club took the place of Sotheby's, whose management refused to participate; and they arrived at Cannon Hall once Thornhill Primary School in Islington and Channing School had been deemed unsatisfactory. Prop prototypes were often 3D printed. Costume designer Jeffrey Kurland and his team cut and stitched the clothing in the United States, manufacturing them for the main cast and thousands more.

Casting

John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Elizabeth Debicki were cast in March 2019. Washington, Pattinson, and Debicki were each only permitted to read the screenplay while locked in a room. Nolan chose Washington for his performance in BlacKkKlansman (2018). Washington kept diaries in which he would expand the Protagonist's backstory. Seeing Pattinson in Good Time (2017) made a considerable impression on producer Emma Thomas. Pattinson based his character's mannerisms on those of author Christopher Hitchens. While Kat was originally going to be an older woman, Debicki's appearance in Widows (2018) convinced the filmmakers otherwise. The casting of Dimple Kapadia, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh was announced as filming started. Kapadia's screen test was put together by director Homi Adajania while working on his 2020 film Angrezi Medium. Poésy was pregnant with her second child at the time, something Thomas opted to keep visible. Caine was merely given his pages for one day of work. Branagh rescheduled production on his own directorial venture Death on the Nile (2020) to do the part, claiming to have studied the manuscript more times than any other in his career. Himesh Patel joined in August. Martin Donovan was revealed in the first trailer. Fiona Dourif and Yuri Kolokolnikov were included later on. Dourif's role Wheeler is a reference to theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler.

Filming

Principal photography, involving a crew of 250 people, began in May 2019 on a soundstage in Los Angeles and took place in seven countries—Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Filming in Estonia happened in June and July, with the Linnahall, Pärnu Highway (E67), and adjacent streets closed to facilitate it. Kumu Art Museum doubled as the fictional "Oslo freeport". Barbara's office was built in a former law court, the Tallinn Freeport exterior was at the city docks, and a room at the Hilton Tallinn Park Hotel was also utilized. Mayor Mihhail Kõlvart expressed concerns about potential disruptions as the shooting schedule required that the arterial Laagna Road be closed for one month. A compromise was eventually reached, involving temporary road closures and detours. Scenes were shot on the Amalfi Coast (Italy), the Solent, at the Reform Club, Locanda Locatelli, and Cannon Hall (England) from July to August, on the roof of the Oslo Opera House, at The Thief hotel (Norway), and in Rødbyhavn at Nysted Wind Farm (Denmark) in early September. A five-day shoot occurred later that month in Mumbai, specifically Breach Candy Hospital, Cafe Mondegar, Colaba Causeway, Colaba Market, Gateway of India, Grant Road, Royal Bombay Yacht Club, and the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. A restaurant named "Chaand" was erected near the hotel, but never used, serving only as an alternative. Forty boats were positioned at the Gateway of India, where the crew rescued a man who had attempted suicide. They proceeded to Los Angeles soon after. Hawthorne Plaza Shopping Center functioned as the interior set of an icebreaker and a shipping container. The Victorville Airport was disguised as Oslo, with more than ninety extras involved. Instead of using miniatures and visual effects (VFX) for the plane crash sequence, Nolan determined that purchasing a Boeing 747 proved more cost effective. October saw them in Eagle Mountain, where an abandoned town had been constructed and hundreds were clothed in military camouflage uniforms. Over thirty buildings were prefabricated in Los Angeles and shipped to the site. Four Boeing CH-47 Chinooks were loaned out for four days. Outside shots of a tunnel were done in the desert, while the insides of the Hypocenter were fashioned on a soundstage. Tenet wrapped on November 12, after ninety-six days.

Director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema employed a combination of 70 mm film and IMAX, prioritizing Panavision lenses that would best accommodate lower light. Segments that concerned time inversion were captured both in backward and forward mobility and speech. To ensure proficiency in handling firearms, Washington and Pattinson attended the Taran Tactical firing range in Simi Valley. They also did some of their own stunts. Over one hundred watercraft were recruited, together with catamarans, the megayacht Planet Nine (onto which an Mi-8 helicopter would land), icebreakers, speed- and fishing boats, and a cargo tanker. The windfarm vessel Iceni Revenge was brought through Denmark, Estonia, and Italy for all three months.

Post-production

See also: Tenet (soundtrack)

Ludwig Göransson was chosen as the composer as Nolan's frequent collaborator Hans Zimmer had committed himself to the 2021 film Dune. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Göransson recorded musicians at their homes. Researching retrograde composition caused him to generate melodies that would sound the same forward and backward. He experimented with distorted industrial noise and, to represent Sator's irradiated breathing, asked Nolan to tape his own in studio. Göransson produced ten to fifteen minutes of music each week. The first scoring session was held in November 2019, continuing into early 2020. The Tenet soundtrack contains "The Plan," a song by Travis Scott. Jennifer Lame replaced Nolan's long-time editor Lee Smith, who was occupied with 2019's 1917. Lame was tasked with unsupervised editing during the principal photography and would look at dailies. DNEG created about 280 VFX shots. Sound designer Richard King sent a team to Eagle Mountain to record the Chinooks and Mi-8, and to Southampton for the F50 catamarans. Others were hired for the aural atmosphere of Oslo, Mumbai, and Tallinn. King got the audio of both live and blank automatic weapon rounds at a gun range in San Francisquito Canyon and rented a runway to test how the vehicles sounded.

Marketing and release

In August 2019, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures debuted a forty-second teaser ahead of Hobbs & Shaw previews. It was attached to Indian showings of Joker in October. The first trailer was published online in December, when a cinema-exclusive prologue played in certain IMAX theaters before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The prologue was introduced during Indian IMAX screenings of Birds of Prey in February 2020. A TV spot appeared that May, promoted in the video game Fortnite. The logo, stylized by Nolan as TENƎꓕ, was altered for this trailer due to its similarity with that of a bicycle components manufacturer. The final trailer, out in August, featured Scott's single. An exclusive making-of video was uploaded on August 26.

Warners Bros. originally scheduled Tenet for a July 17, 2020, release in IMAX, 35 mm, and 70 mm film. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was first delayed to July 31, and subsequently August 12. Executives calculated that each postponement cost Warner Bros. between $200,000 and $400,000 in marketing fees. After briefly being held up indefinitely, Warner Bros. arranged the film to be released internationally on August 26 in seventy countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Preview screenings commenced in Australia and South Korea on August 22 and 23. It moved to select cities in the United States on September 3, gradually expanding in the ensuing weeks. On September 4, it came out in China. Tenet became the first Hollywood tent-pole to launch in theaters following their prolonged shutdown. The lack of available movies afforded it more screens per multiplex than would otherwise be possible. It became available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital services on December 15, 2020.

Reception

Box office

As of January 3, 2021, Tenet has grossed $57.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $305 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $362.9 million. With a production budget of $200 million, Tenet is Nolan's most expensive original project. IndieWire speculated that the marketing could push the final sum to $300–350 million, though analysts predicted lower advertising costs than usual, owing to inexpensive live sports ads. Box office analyst Jeff Bock estimated it would need to make $400 million in order to break even. In November 2020, rival studios expected the film to lose up to $100 million, but Warner Bros. insisted losses would not top $50 million. Nolan was reported to receive twenty percent of the first-dollar gross.

Tenet was projected to take $25–30 million internationally over its first five days. In South Korea, pre-sale IMAX tickets sold out and weekend previews totaled $717,000 from 590 venues. Another four days there yielded $4.13 million from about 2,200 screens, bringing the cume to $5.1 million by the end of the week. The film debuted to $53 million in forty-one countries, grossing $7.1 million in the United Kingdom, $6.7 million in France, and $4.2 million in Germany. Tenet made $58.1 million in its second weekend, with China ($30 million from first showings), the U.K. ($13.1 million), France ($10.7 million), Germany ($8.7 million), and South Korea ($8.2 million) as its largest markets. Its third weekend garnered $30.6 million, comprising $16.4 million from the U.K., $13.2 million from France, $11.4 million from Germany, $10.3 million from South Korea, and $10.2 million from China. Two weeks in Japan accumulated $11.4 million. Tenet opened in India on December 4, 2020, and made about $576,000 in the first three days.

With 65% of American and Canadian theaters operating at 25–40% capacity, the first eleven days acquired $20.2 million from 2,810 theaters; $2.5 million in Canada, $12 million in the U.S., and the rest from previews. The second, third, and fourth weekends added $6.7 million, $4.7 million, and $3.4 million, respectively. Tenet remained atop the box office in its fifth weekend with $2.7 million, before ceding to The War with Grandpa in its sixth weekend.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Tenet holds an approval rating of 70% based on 312 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A visually dazzling puzzle for film lovers to unlock, Tenet serves up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 80% of filmgoers gave it a positive score, with 65% saying they would recommend it.

Guy Lodge of Variety described Tenet as a "grandly entertaining, time-slipping spectacle." The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw felt it was both "madly preposterous" and "amazing cinema". Kevin Maher of The Times awarded the film a full five stars, deeming it "a delightfully convoluted masterpiece." Robbie Collin of The Telegraph likened it to Nolan's Inception and praised the "depth, subtlety and wit of Pattinson and Debicki's performances." In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers praised the film for being "pure, ravishing cinema." A review for The Dispatch called Tenet "the perfect movie to mark the return of theaters because it captures so much of what makes the medium of cinema great." James Berardinelli noted that, "[Tenet] may be the most challenging of Nolan's films to date when it comes to wrapping one's mind around the concepts forming the narrative's foundation: backwards-moving entropy, non-linear thinking, temporal paradoxes ... The film contains some of Nolan's most ambitious action sequences to-date but one wonders whether the plot density—a not inconsiderable obstacle for some who prefer not to devote their undivided attention for ​2 ¹⁄₂ hours—might prove to be problematic." Mark Daniell of the Toronto Sun gave the film four out of four stars, deeming it "the cinematic equivalent of a Rubik's Cube, presented in towering Imax and featuring a polished cast set amidst some of the world's most gorgeous locations." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it ​3 ¹⁄₂ out of 4 stars, and noted that the movie "reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn't quite reach that lofty goal, it's the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience."

Jessica Kiang of The New York Times described it as Nolan's "time-bending" take on James Bond, praising the film's cinematography, score, editing, acting and "immaculately creaseless costumes", while also deeming it a "hugely expensive, blissfully empty spectacle". LA Weekly's Asher Luberto also highlighted the similarities between Tenet and the James Bond films, but also felt it was "a daring, surprising and entirely original piece of work, reverent in its spectacle and haunting in its mesmerizing, dreamlike form." Branagh's Andrei Sator was described by some critics as a stereotypical Russian villain. Christina Newland of New York noted that Sator is "played by a silly-accented Kenneth Branagh as a Bond-villain-esque Russian mastermind." Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter felt Washington was "dashing but a little dull," but remarked that Debicki's performance "adds a color to Nolan's palette, and [she] has persuasive chemistry with Branagh in their joint portrait of a violent, dysfunctional love-hate relationship." She further concluded that Tenet makes "for a chilly, cerebral film—easy to admire, especially since it's so rich in audacity and originality, but almost impossible to love, lacking as it is in a certain humanity."

Mike McCahill of IndieWire noted that it was "the summer's most keenly awaited event movie" but gave it a "C-" grade and called it "a humorless disappointment". Poor sound mixing on 35 mm movie film "often" rendered dialog inaudible, stated Brian Lloyd of Entertainment.ie; viewing the film on Digital Cinema Package files reduced the problem. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune awarded the film 2 out of 4 stars, writing, "I wish Tenet exploited its own ideas more dynamically. Nolan's a prodigious talent. But no major director, I suppose, can avoid going sideways from time to time." New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski also gave it 2 out of 4 stars, calling it Nolan's most "confusing" work so far, but acknowledged being "swept up by Nolan's incomparable cinematic vision. He is one of the few directors working today who consistently churns out visually seismic, sophisticated action films".

Accolades

Ceremonies	Year(s)	Categories	Recipients/nominees	Results	Ref.
Golden Angel Award in Chinese American Film Festival	2020	Most Popular U.S. Film in China	Tenet	Won
Hochi Film Awards	2020	Best Picture	Tenet	Won
Nikkan Sports Film Awards	2020	Best Foreign Film	Tenet	Nominated
People's Choice Awards	2020	Favorite Action Movie	Tenet	Nominated
		Favorite Action Movie Star	John David Washington	Nominated
Critics' Choice Super Awards	2021	Best Action Movie	Tenet	Pending
		Best Actor in an Action Movie	John David Washington	Pending

External links

• Official website
• Tenet at IMDb
• Tenet at Rotten Tomatoes
• Tenet at Box Office Mojo