Nolan made a one-of-a-kind film, but not a good one
Surely many of you remember how ‘Tenet’ was talked about at the time as little less than the film that was going to save cinema after the collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The tension generated by not postponing its release (for fear that the public would not go to the theaters) ended up being one of the factors for Christopher Nolan broke off his professional relationship with Warner and make the jump to Universalthe studio with which he made ‘Oppenheimer’, a great box office success that also swept the Oscars.
The truth is that ‘Tenet’ grossed much less than expected for a film that cost 205 million of dollars (not including the high marketing expenditure); It only earned 365 million in theaters. Warner did not show any regrets, but it seems clear that the box office did not help smooth things over between Nolan and the studio. If you want to review it (or finally see it), like almost all Warner productions, you will find it available to watch on HBO Max. It can also be rented online on platforms such as Prime Video or RakutenTV.
The little human touch
One thing that did not surprise anyone about ‘Tenet’ is that it was much denser than usual in a blockbuster, since otherwise it would be a complete surprise coming from Nolan. The problem is that here his more cerebral side led him to completely banish the emotional component, key to achieving greater viewer involvement in what happens on screen. There will be those for whom this is not a problem, since the visual spectacle it proposes is impressive and its premise is also very striking, but for me it takes more than that.
Here the characters simply fail, especially that of John David Washingtonsince you can’t put an empty shell in front of a story like that and expect it to be enough to motivate us for the mission it has to face.
And I am clear that this is because Christopher Nolan doesn’t care too much about the human touch here, because he prefers to bet on the bombast and alleged genius of the ideas he handles (although he himself admits that ‘Tenet’ is not completely understood). I don’t deny that this serves as a basis for visually fascinating moments, but the whole thing never ends up working and there comes a point at which it is most likely that you have simply disconnected and that even its visual display tires you.
I have no doubt that there are viewers who will end up surpassed by ‘Tenet’ in another sense, since it is an indisputably overwhelming title but also one of a kind. The problem is that different does not equal good.
In Espinof:
