It's coming. The question is, are you willing to risk it going to see it?
In a bricks and mortar theatre? Uh, no way...
So... who here has actually seen
Tenet? Apparently the digital formats will become available on December 15th in the USA, but not streaming yet. That might first be via HBOMax (since AT&T owns Warner which holds the exhibition rights) but not until sometime in early spring of 2021... unless of course the various digital download price points end up being over the top.
I don't regard my following comments and couple of quotes about
Tenet as at all a spoiler, since much has been written about this film by reviewers in traditional and online media. But quit scrolling down now if you think you'd be put off by even a hint of what anyone has actually seen of this movie.
OF COURSE I have wanted to know what this Nolan film was all about. So of course I slid 'film review "Tenet"' into a search engine and lazily picked
one from the New York Times because I was probably already logged into that site.
I do very much like Jessica Kiang's writing and her eye for detail in a film review, but nothing particularly leaped out from my scroll through the piece until I hit the bit quoted below. It became clear that Kiang had watched this movie while paying close attention to something besides the action and editing thereof, both of which likely received all due respect.
“Tenet” operates on a physiological level, in the stomach-pit rumbles of Ludwig Goransson’s score, and the dilated-pupil responses to Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography, which delivers the same magnificence whether observing a narratively superfluous catamaran race, or the nap and weave of Jeffrey Kurland’s immaculately creaseless costumes. Seriously, the most mind-boggling aspect of “Tenet” might be the ironing budget.
Wow. An ironing budget. Who knew? Modern filmmaking boggles the mind.
It was while watching credits roll for some blockbuster --in case they were interspersed with amusing outtakes or whatever-- that I first realized there are film production jobs behind scenes that one can routinely do around the house for north of 50 years for zero credit, plenty of exercise and damn paltry pay... exactly the same as at film studios, a friend in the business (a costume fabric buyer) hastened to say, and not in a joking manner.
Anyway, for those having seen
Tenet so far in a theatre, given my not being a fan of action flicks in general, will it be worth the watch when it hits the streaming platforms?
I like spy novels and some thrillers but action-adventure movies usually not so much. One hopes this is a step up from the run of mill, since at least it seems to have had an ironing budget.
My question is possibly answered by another bit from that review (which I did find well worth the read) but I have read only that one evaluation. Sounds like there might not be enough "there there" for me beneath all the action and adventure. Kiang's take, short form:
“Tenet” dazzles the senses, but it does not move the heart — a criticism common to all of Nolan’s original films. And other widely recognized Nolan blind spots are also in evidence: it’s depressing that as fine an actress as [Elizabeth[ Debicki should be saddled with such a cipher role, given a son in lieu of a character and made responsible for the story’s only bad decisions. Everyone else performs to perfection, especially [John David] Washington’s history-less protagonist who proves that not all superheroes wear capes. Some wear the hell out of suits so dapper that one of the film’s biggest laughs comes when Nolan talisman Michael Caine glances at Washington, looking better, in his dark-blue ensemble, than possibly any human man has ever looked, and sneers Britishly, “Brooks Brothers is not going to cut it.”
Well.. time will tell. I'm not holding my breath until March or whenever they decide to stream this thing. I'm going to try some other movie first. Probably not action-adventure either.
I may opt next for a glance back at a glance back, etc. One idea is to watch Joe Wright's 2005 take on Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen (of note as Tom in the series
Succession)... not least to enjoy the scoring by Dario Marianelli. The other choice might be Kenneth Lonergan’s four-part TV miniseries (2018) adaptation of
Howard's End which also stars Macfadyen.
File all under part of "whatever it takes to get to the winter solstice..."
-- and then graduated to not one, not two, but three different versions of the original tale.
