Probably not a movie – except could be the eternally delayed James Bond movie No time to die– has come to better represent the difficulties of releasing films in COVID World than that of Christopher Nolan TenetThanks to delays, arguments about digital distribution, concerns about pandemic exposure and the implication that the fate of the entire theater industry rested on its back, Nolan’s has taken on perfectly usable action film layers that went well beyond what are admittedly delightful explosions and deliberately complicated. plot could ever probably support. In fact, it has been picked up that much symbolic weight that people started doing deliberate art projects just to reject Nolan, including the hilariously mean act of squashing the entire movie to the point that it cwould fit in five small ones Game Boy Advance Cartridges
And now the time has finally come: Tenet comes to HBO Max, dubbed once “The worst streaming service” by the director of the movie, who was generously pissed off about Warner Media’s (now firmly executed) plans to release films on the service simultaneously with their theatrical releases. That is not the case for that Tenet, of course – Nolan managed to secure his highly anticipated theatrical run last year, and the movie has been available as VOD for months now – but the thought that the movie now rests on a structure he’s blown up in recent months is it kind of rich irony, it’s hard to say no. There is also the more basic fact that, if you should still see it Tenet (due to the deadly global pandemic) this will likely be a pretty good way to finally get there see it. *
* This view is not supported or endorsed by Tenet director Christopher Nolan.