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 took place in March 2019, and principal photography lasted six months, from May to November, in Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot on 65 mm film and IMAX. Scenes of time manipulation were filmed both backwards and forwards. Over one hundred vessels and thousands of extras were used.
A CIA agent, the "Protagonist", participates in an extraction operation at a Kyiv opera house. A masked soldier wearing a red trinket saves his life by "un-firing" a bullet through a gunman. After seizing an artifact, the Protagonist is captured by mercenaries. He is tortured before consuming what he believes to be a suicide pill. He awakens to learn the suicide pill was a test of loyalty and that the artifact was lost.
The Protagonist is recruited by an organization called Tenet. A scientist briefs him on bullets with "inverted" entropy, meaning they move backward through time. She believes they are manufactured in the future, and other inverted objects seem to be remnants of a war in the future. The Protagonist meets his handler, Neil, through a CIA contact, and they trace the inverted bullets to arms dealer Priya Singh in Mumbai. They learn that Priya is a member of Tenet, and her cartridges were purchased and inverted by Russian oligarch Andrei Sator.
In London, the Protagonist approaches Sator's estranged wife Kat, an art appraiser who falsely authenticated a forged Goya drawing. She tells him that Sator purchased the drawing from the forger, Arepo, and is using Kat's authentication as blackmail to control her in their relationship. The Protagonist and Neil plot to steal the drawing from a freeport storage facility at the Oslo Airport. There they fend off two masked men who seemingly emerge from a strange device. Afterward, Priya explains that the device is a turnstile, a machine that can invert the entropy of objects and people, and that the masked men were the same person traveling in opposite directions through time.
On the Amalfi Coast, Italy, Kat introduces the Protagonist to Sator, and learns the drawing is intact. Sator plans to kill the Protagonist, but the Protagonist saves Sator's life after Kat attempts to drown him. Sator and the Protagonist strike a partnership to retrieve a case that supposedly contains plutonium-241. In Tallinn, the Protagonist and Neil ambush a convoy and steal the case, which actually contains the artifact lost in Kyiv. They are ambushed by an inverted Sator holding Kat hostage. The Protagonist gives an empty case to Sator, who retreats after receiving it. The Protagonist rescues Kat but is soon captured and taken to a warehouse with a turnstile.
In the warehouse, the inverted Sator shoots Kat with an inverted round, while the non-inverted Sator demands the location of the artifact. Tenet operatives led by Ives arrive and rescue the Protagonist while Sator escapes into the turnstile. The group takes Kat through the turnstile to aid healing her inverted wound. The now-inverted Protagonist travels back in time to the ambush site, where he attempts to retrieve the artifact but is intercepted by Sator. The Protagonist's car is overturned and catches fire, but Neil saves him and reveals he is a member of Tenet.
The Protagonist, Neil, and Kat travel back in time to the freeport in Oslo. The Protagonist fights his past self, enters the turnstile, and reverts, followed by Neil and Kat. Later, Priya explains that Sator is collecting the artifacts to assemble an "algorithm" which is capable of catastrophically inverting the entropy of the Earth.
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. They learn that Sator is using a dead man's switch to trigger the algorithm. Kat believes Sator will travel back in time to commit suicide during their vacation in Vietnam, so that the world will die with him at the last moment he was happy. The Protagonist, Neil, Kat, and Tenet troops travel back in time to that day, where Kat disguises herself as her past self to keep Sator alive long enough for Tenet to secure the algorithm. Tenet tracks the algorithm to Sator's hometown in Northern Siberia, where it is heavily guarded. They launch a "temporal pincer movement", with non-inverted red team troops and inverted blue team troops making a simultaneous assault. Sator reveals people in the future want him to trigger the algorithm in the hopes of reversing the effects of climate change. An inverted blue-team soldier wearing a red trinket sacrifices himself to save the Protagonist and Ives as they attempt to secure the algorithm. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Kat kills Sator just as the Protagonist secures the algorithm.
The Protagonist, Neil, and Ives break up the algorithm and part ways. The Protagonist notices that Neil is wearing the red trinket. Neil reveals he was recruited by the Protagonist in Neil's past and this mission is, from his perspective, the end of a long friendship. Since Kat knows too much, Priya attempts to have her assassinated, but Priya is killed by the Protagonist, who has concluded that he is the mastermind behind Tenet.
Writer and director Christopher Nolan conceived the ideas behind Tenet over the course of twenty years,[24] but began working on the script in 2014.[11] The title is a palindrome and an allusion to the Sator Square.[11][25] Nolan made a conscious effort to abstain from any influence of the spy genre other than his own memory.[26]Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) inspired the screenwriting.[24] Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who worked with Nolan on Interstellar (2014), was consulted on the subjects of time and quantum physics.[27] Pre-production lasted from late 2018 until early 2019, leaving department heads five months to prepare.[11] Special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher watched World War II movies and documentaries to find reference points for realism.[28] Production designer Nathan Crowley requested Hamilton Watch Company to manufacture around thirty military wristwatches, each analog with a digital countdown.[29] 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 chose Cannon Hall after 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.[11][30]
Principal photography, involving a crew of 250 people,[36] began in May 2019 on a soundstage in Los Angeles and took place in seven countries[11][43]—Denmark, Estonia,[nb 1]India,[nb 2] Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States.[46][nb 3] Filming in Estonia happened in June and July, with the Linnahall, Pärnu Highway (E67), and adjacent streets closed to facilitate it.[47][48]Kumu Art Museum doubled as the fictional "Oslo freeport".[49] 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.[11] Mayor Mihhail Kõlvart expressed concerns about potential disruptions as the shooting schedule required that the arterial Laagna Road be closed for one month.[50] A compromise was eventually reached, involving temporary road closures and detours.[51][52]
Director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema employed a combination of 65 mm film and IMAX,[63] prioritizing Panavision lenses that would best accommodate lower light.[28] Segments that concerned time inversion were captured both in backward and forward mobility and speech.[64][65] 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 two F50catamarans, the megayachtPlanet Nine (onto which an Mi-8 helicopter would land), icebreakers, speed- and fishing boats, and a cargo tanker.[11] The windfarm vessel Iceni Revenge was brought through Denmark, Estonia, and Italy for all three months.[66]
Ludwig Göransson was chosen as the composer as Nolan's frequent collaborator Hans Zimmer had committed himself to the 2021 film Dune.[67][68] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Göransson recorded musicians at their homes.[16] 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.[11] The Tenet soundtrack contains "The Plan," a song by Travis Scott.[69]Jennifer Lame replaced Nolan's long-time editor Lee Smith, who was occupied with 2019's 1917.[70] Lame was tasked with unsupervised editing during the principal photography and would look at dailies.[11]DNEG created about 280 VFX shots.[24] 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.[11]
Release
Warner Bros. originally scheduled Tenet for a July 17, 2020, release in IMAX, 35 mm, and 70 mm film.[71] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was first delayed to July 31,[72][73] and subsequently August 12.[74] Executives calculated that each postponement cost Warner Bros. between $200,000 and $400,000 in marketing fees.[75] After briefly being held up indefinitely,[76] 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.[77] Preview screenings commenced in Australia and South Korea on August 22 and 23.[78][79] It moved to select cities in the United States on September 3, gradually expanding in the ensuing weeks.[77] On September 4, it came out in China.[80]Tenet became the first Hollywood tent-pole to launch in theaters following their prolonged shutdown.[81] The lack of available movies afforded it more screens per multiplex than would otherwise be possible.[82] It became available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital services on December 15, 2020.[83] On March 2, 2021, Warner Bros. announced that in light of the New York state government allowing movie theaters in New York City to re-open the following Friday (March 5) following a nearly year-long shutdown (causing theaters in the city to miss out on the film's initial theatrical run), they would be re-releasing Tenet at select theaters in the city that same day.[84]Tenet was released on HBO Max on May 1, 2021.[85]
Reception
Box office
Tenet grossed $58.5million in the United States and Canada, and $305.2million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $363.7million.[4][5] With a production budget of $200million,[86]Tenet is Nolan's most expensive original project.[87]IndieWire speculated that the marketing could push the final sum to $300–350million,[88] though analysts predicted lower advertising costs than usual, owing to inexpensive live sports ads.[89] Box office analyst Jeff Bock estimated it would need to make $400–$500million in order to break even.[90] In November 2020, rival studios expected the film to lose up to $100million, but Warner Bros. insisted losses would not top $50million.[91] Nolan was reported to receive twenty percent of the first-dollar gross.[92]
Tenet was projected to take $25–30million internationally over its first five days.[93] In South Korea, pre-sale IMAX tickets sold out and weekend previews totaled $717,000 from 590 venues.[79] Another four days there yielded $4.13million from about 2,200 screens, bringing the cume to $5.1million by the end of the week. The film debuted to $53million in forty-one countries, grossing $7.1million in the United Kingdom, $6.7million in France, and $4.2million in Germany.[3][94][95]Tenet made $58.1million in its second weekend, with China ($30million from first showings), the U.K. ($13.1million), France ($10.7million), Germany ($8.7million), and South Korea ($8.2million) as its largest markets.[96] Its third weekend garnered $30.6million, comprising $16.4million from the U.K., $13.2million from France, $11.4million from Germany, $10.3million from South Korea, and $10.2million from China.[97] Two weeks in Japan accumulated $11.4million.[98]Tenet opened in India on December 4, 2020,[99] and made about $576,000 in the first three days.[100]Tenet became the highest-grossing film of all time in Estonia, with a total gross of $1.2 million.[101]
With 65% of American and Canadian theaters operating at 25–40% capacity, the first eleven days acquired $20.2million from 2,810 theaters; $2.5million in Canada, $12million in the U.S., and the rest from previews.[95][102] The second, third, and fourth weekends added $6.7million, $4.7million, and $3.4million, respectively.[103][104][105]Tenet remained atop the box office in its fifth weekend with $2.7million,[106] before ceding to The War with Grandpa in its sixth weekend.[107]
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of 351 critics gave Tenet a positive review, 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."[108] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[109] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale,[110] and PostTrak reported 80% of those gave the film a positive score, with 65% saying they would recommend it.[103] Keith Phillips of The Ringer wrote that Tenet has the makings of a cult film: "With a failed release due to the pandemic, a muted critical reception, and a twisty narrative that demands multiple viewings, Christopher Nolan's 2020 film has all of the elements that eventually lead to niche fandom."[111]
Guy Lodge of Variety described Tenet as a "grandly entertaining, time-slipping spectacle."[10]The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw felt it was both "madly preposterous" and "amazing cinema".[112]Kevin Maher of The Times awarded the film a full five stars, deeming it "a delightfully convoluted masterpiece."[113]Robbie Collin of The Telegraph likened it to Nolan's Inception and praised the "depth, subtlety and wit of Pattinson and Debicki's performances."[15] In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers praised the film for being "pure, ravishing cinema", and praised Washington's performance, calling him a "star-in-the-making" and writing, "A former football running back, the actor brings a natural athletic grace to the stunts and hand-to-hand combat that forge a visceral bond between his character and the audience."[114] 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."[115]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."[116] 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."[117]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."[118]
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".[119]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."[120] Branagh's Andrei Sator was described by some critics as a stereotypical Russian villain.[121][122] Christina Newland of New York noted that Sator is "played by a silly-accented Kenneth Branagh as a Bond-villain-esque Russian mastermind."[123] 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."[21]
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".[124] 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.[125]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."[126]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".[127] Kathleen Sachs of the Chicago Reader gave it 1+1⁄2 out of 4 stars, concluding that Nolan "doesn't show much growth in his most recent self-indulgent work."[128]
Richard King, Joseph Fraioli, Mark Larry, Michael W. Mitchell, Angela Ang, Bruce Tanis, John Cucci, Catherine Harper, Alyson Dee Moore, Chris Moriana, Dan O'Connell, Shelley Roden, John Roesch and Katie Rose
Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Times noted that Warner Bros. did not put Tenet on the Academy's streaming platform or send out screeners to awards voters.[143]
Possible sequel
On September 21, 2020, following the film's release, John David Washington was asked during an interview about a potential sequel to Tenet. Washington replied; "In my mind, that's a yes!" Washington told Esquire about Tenet setting up a sequel, "We will be doing this again, we'll see you in a couple of years. In reality, I don't know. Chris does what he wants. Maybe he has something that he's developed for years that he wants to do next, maybe he's been inspired by something else he sees and wants to do that, I don't know. I hope we get to do it again, I hope we get to explore more, because I think we found something really unique".[144]
Notes
^Seven weeks of filming in Estonia came at a cost of €16.5million;[16][44] Warner Bros. Pictures paid a rebate that was reimbursed at thirty percent.[44]
^It took one week to secure the permission to shoot in Mumbai.[45] The planned schedule was completed in half the time.[46]
^ abcdefMaytum, Matt (June 2020). "Time to Spy". Total Film. No. 299. pp. 30–35. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
^ abMartin, Kevin H. (August 2020). "Time, Again". ICG Magazine. Vol. 91 no. 6. pp. 43–46. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
^Tronsli Drabløs, Øystein; Alnes, Espen; Tunheim, Helga (September 5, 2019). "Hollywood-stjerner i Oslo" [Hollywood stars in Oslo] (in Norwegian). NRK. Archived from the original on September 17, 2019. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
Mottram, James (2020). The Secrets of Tenet: Inside Christopher Nolan's Quantum Cold War. Insight Editions. ISBN978-1-64722-060-0.
Further reading
Belluomini, L. (2020). "Tenet as Philosophy: Fatalism Isn't an Excuse to Do Nothing". In Johnson D. K. (ed.). The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97134-6_99-1. ISBN978-3-319-97134-6.