A Humble Guide to Enjoying TENET on your First Watch

TENET is Christopher Nolan’s most recent epic that pushes the limits of cinema — but also our brains. Understanding the movie on the first watch has proved to be one of 2020’s many challenges, so hopefully this guide can be of use for the many that have not watched the film yet.

Before we get started, TENET is a movie designed to be watched, and enjoyed, your second time. On the first watch, my reaction largely consisted of confusion and headache from trying to learn the mechanics of time inversion AND follow the story at the same time. My reaction the second time was of pure amazement. If you have the luxury to watch the movie twice, I’d highly recommend it as it gives you the chance to understand the world mechanics and the overall plot the first watch, and watching as everything falls into place on the second watch to form an avant-garde action thriller.

Oh and also, mild spoilers ahead. This article is targeted for people who haven’t watched the movie yet and I won’t spoil anything related to the story, but I do explain how the mechanics behind the world works so it’ll make more sense on your first watch.

Turn on Subtitles / Request Closed Captioning

Regardless of whether you normally turn on subtitles or not, definitely turn on subtitles for this movie. Most movie theaters offer closed caption AR glasses and/or cupholder displays for accessibility available for anyone to request. Important lines of dialogue are only said once, and it’s better to understand what was said without rewinding. Also, one of the most common complaints of this movie is that the sound design is unbalanced, so the dialogue often gets masked under gunfire and blaring music. Kenneth Branagh’s character’s thick Russian accent doesn’t help either.

Mechanics of the World

One of the central tenets (pun intended) of this movie is the mechanic of time inversion. While the movie does explain how time inversion works, it does so gradually over the course of an hour and a half. This can make certain scenes confusing to watch on your first watch. Therefore, it can be handy to know the basic principles of how time inversion works in this world. This will probably be the most spoiler-heavy (again mechanics only, not story) part of this article, so skip if you want to give a good struggle while watching the movie.

• Predeterminism — This movie only makes sense if you accept that the world already has an answer for how everything will end up — it is just a matter of finding out how.
• Turnstiles — This is the only mechanic by which an object can go from going through time normally to becoming inverted through time, or vice versa. Pay attention to mentions of turnstiles and scenes where they go through them.
• “Pissing in the rain” — Eventually, anything inverted will correct itself. This is by far the most wishy-washy concept in this film, but it can be used to explain a lot of the “what-ifs” and things that don’t quite make sense at first.
• Inverted objects impart inverted force (for the most part) — inverted bullets will make an inverted hole, inverted RPG will make an inverted explosion.

Choices do not affect the outcome

If you try to watch this film with the notion that a character’s choice (e.g. your decision to watch this movie) affects the outcome (e.g. whether you actually watch the movie), then the entire film will fall apart due to the grandfather paradox. In this film, the world is predeterministic: what has happened cannot be changed, even if it means an event will cause itself. If you saw yourself watching TENET, then even if you decide not to watch tenet right now, you will still end up watching TENET at that exact place and time. In essence, the characters are simply passengers in a reality that is already decided.

Accept and Move On

Many of the things in the movie will not make sense initially, and will come together as the movie progresses. However, this is also the exact reason why the movie is so fun to watch the second time. If you’re spending more than 20 or 30 seconds thinking about the specifics of a scene or why something happened the way it did, the movie probably hasn’t told you yet for a reason. While it can be really fun to predict what will happen, it’s also important that you don’t fall behind so that you can catch the explanations of a past scene when it is revealed to you.

Additionally, there are some inconsistencies in the details of some of the scenes, which is inevitable in a film with this many moving parts. If something doesn’t make sense, this could also be the case. This (spoiler warning) is a pretty good compilation of some of the inconsistencies to read after your viewing. Either way, acknowledge it and move on.

Listen to the Music

The last act is one of the hardest rollercoasters to hang on to. With world mechanics being pushed to their limits, combined with classic Nolan fast cuts across different perspectives, viewer confusion will be highest near the end. However, the movie clues you in on this with the music. In the last act, listen for the score’s reversed synth notes, which will signal that the current shot is in reverse. There are a couple of scenes that this is inconsistent, especially within the last 5 minutes, but for the most part this is a good general indicator.

Final Thoughts

TENET’s ambition to challenges the limits of what can be done is a noble goal, but it asks a lot of its viewers. That said, if you pay the attention it asks for, TENET stands in a class of its own.

If you’re open to full-on spoilers, I’d recommend taking a look at a timeline such as this or this. I’d also recommend reading the reddit FAQ after you’ve watched the movie to answer any lingering questions.