The Genius of TENET (2020) Explained

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Dimple Kapadia, Elizabeth Debicki and Sir Kenneth Branagh, Tenet 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.

#Tenet

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[Nexus-]

'Inception sure was mind bending, and confusing."
Tenet: "Hold my beer."

[thenewadventuresofhenry]

I get the feeling Chris Nolan LOVES heist films but doesn't actually want to DO a heist film. So he makes it more interesting. We have to steal from a dream, we have to find a new planet, we have to get off the beach, we need to go back in time, we have to be Batman.

[sebswede]

"Do you understand now?"
"Yesn't".

[Deeptom]

Neil was a Silent Guardian
A watchful protector
The Batman.

[AverageAlien]

Nolan: Yes

*How confusing do you want this movie to be?*

[grapeshot]

That backwards fight scene was quite impressive.

[BrandonLM]

Throughout the film all I could think is, how bad was the future, that they were willing to possibly destroy all of time to end it.

[gowronsonofmrel]

To quote Enrico Fermi "Having listened to your lecture, I am still confused -- but on a higher level.”

[nerovanguard]

I have watched this movie 3 times now and everytime I do, I find something new. It's just absolutely awesome and I see it as a masterpiece

[graciemarshall]

This was the first explanation of tenet that has fully made sense, I loved the whole diagram showing when they were going forward and backward in time!!!

[kevinwho.]

Of all the explanations of Tenet I’ve seen (and I’ve seen alot) this is the best one by far, awesome job

[G]

When Neil said at the end "this whole operation is a temporal pincer" - that should be the biggest give away about what's happening in the movie

[FrankFrankly]

Tenet is pretty much a more complicated version of the Bill and Ted rule: "Hey Dude, lets make sure in the future we go back in time to help ourselves now!"

[guardian]

Anytime a movie dives into time travel my brain immediately melts

[chrisb]

This is why I love this movie. It makes me think. I have watched it 3 times and have watched countless videos on the movie. I've dove into reading on entropy and time. Christopher nolan knows how to entertain and ask questions at the same time. My favorite director and in my opinion the greatest director of the modern day.

[kingssman]

I watched this film 4 or 5 times trying to wrap my head around time inversion. Just when I think there was a plot hole, the film has an explanation that covers it. Also I like the concept of living backwards in time rather than jumping backwards.

[prsnheretodo]

13:57 We see Neil first in Mumbai.
In Hindi, his name means “Blue”.
That’s a hint from Nolan about his direction in Time.

[sphere]

This movie is so bizarre, and that's what I like about this.

[maxman]

People forget or don't know that Nolan wanted TENET to be a James Bond Science-Fiction movie with an original story. There is an organisation, a plot, a mistery, the characters are similar. He didn't wanted to make nothing other than a new cinematic experience from this movie based on his passion for time and science and on his job, film making. TENET is something else 👍

[aaks]

For those wondering about Neil actually being Max from the future, here's what I believe is the most likely situation.Assuming Max is about 9-10 years old in Tenet, he would need to be around 22-23 years old(maybe even less if he proved himself to be exceptional in academics) for him to have obtained his Masters in Physics as he claims to have to the protagonist. While there is no definitive proof he is telling the truth that he has acquired a degree through conventional means, I am inclined to believe this simply because of the references he makes about "their suppression tactics" and "his drinking on the job" remark both of which were true but were not integral pieces of information for the job at hand but were said anyway for innocent banter between them, even before Neil revealed his true identity to the protagonist towards the end of the film, indicating a very different and jovial personality in contrast to the protagonist who believes lying is part of the job.
This means that after he obtained his degree while still being trained by the Protagonist and Tenet he was inverted using a Turnstile and now would need to go back in time by 13-14 years( again could be less based on when he was qualified) in order to reach the point of the opera siege at Kiev as that is his endgame.
Here comes the most crucial element of time travel in Tenet, even while you are inverted and time moves backwards around you, you still age normally. Meaning if you want to travel 14 years in the past you need to physically live in 14 years of backwards time to get to that point. So if you're 23 and travel back in time by 14 years you'll now be 37 but 14 years ago. Neil is a middle-aged man in this film so this very much holds true in terms of theory. Now as to actually living inverted for all these years, as depicted in the film you need to be constantly using inverted oxygen tanks or be living inside specialized containers and spending that kind of life for such a long time I can only imagine that as pure agony. Honestly the most brilliant character in the movie in my honest opinion.
Thanks for listening to my TED talk .