‘Tenet’ With R. F. Kuang | Nolan Revisited

Summary

House of R: ‘Tenet’ With R. F. Kuang | Nolan Revisited

Podcast: House of R (The Ringer)
Date: May 28, 2026
Hosts: Joanna Robinson & Mallory Rubin
Special Guest: R.F. Kuang (author of Babel, Yellowface, Katabasis)

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Episode Overview

This episode of House of R features a deep dive into Christopher Nolan's 2020 film Tenet, with celebrated author R.F. Kuang as guest (joining remotely, mid-birthday vacation). As self-professed “Tenet apologists,” Kuang passionately defends the film, responding to the podcast’s previous critiques. The conversation rigorously explores Tenet’s structure, themes, emotional core, technical innovations, its divisive reception, and places it within both Nolan's filmography and broader science fiction storytelling. The episode concludes with an ecstatic preview of Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey, with Kuang offering expert insights into the myth’s storytelling legacy and how it resonates with Nolan’s signature preoccupations.

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Main Discussion Breakdown

1. Establishing Nolan Credentials & 'Tenet' Backstory

Timestamps: [02:34] – [05:00]

• Jo & Mal’s Tenet Stance: The hosts recount past episodes where they ranked Tenet low in Nolan’s catalog and the influx of listener messages proclaiming them “wrong about Tenet.”
• Rebecca F. Kuang’s Introduction: Kuang shares her Nolan fandom, recounting her personal and marital connection to his films:

  “He’s my favorite director, straight up, and he’s a big part of my marriage.” – R.F. Kuang [09:35]

• First Viewings:
  • Joanna: Saw Tenet multiple times at a drive-in due to the pandemic.
  • Mallory: Watched at home, appreciated subtitles due to "the genuine sound mixing calamities." [06:41]
  • Rebecca: First streamed at home ("with graph paper" to track the complex plot, naturally), later saw it in IMAX and at friends’ homes, including with a “philosophy professor Tenet evangelist.” [05:32], [06:13]
• Tenet’s Release Context:
  • Noted $205M budget, strong pandemic box office, and infamy as a “pandemic movie.”

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2. Big Picture: Why Tenet Deserves Defense

Timestamps: [11:02] – [14:15]

• Kuang’s Core Arguments:
  1. Unique Time Travel Portrayal: Tenet’s inversion is more innovative than typical instant “portal” time travel; it commits to causality running backwards in a physically “lived” way.

     “In Tenet, they are actually causally backwards... The reverse entropy stuff and how that produces such incredible and technical hand-to-hand combat scenes... so impressive and cool.” – R.F. Kuang [11:02]

  2. Emotional/Thematic Core: Despite a reputation for being “cold,” Nolan’s films, including Tenet, are “deeply moving on a gut level,” especially for those wrestling with the unbreakable constraints of time.

     “Tenet is a deeply moving exploration on conflicts between generations and what parents owe to their children and vice versa.” – R.F. Kuang [11:02]

     • Connects Tenet, Inception, and Interstellar as a “thematic trilogy” about parent-child bonds and temporal longing.
  3. Conviction in Its Conceit: Nolan’s films “commit fully to the bit;” Tenet’s world-building is confidently presented, asking the audience to believe.
• Joanna & Mallory’s Counterpoints:
  • Mallory admires the ambition and craft but finds Tenet convoluted and less emotionally accessible on first viewings; admires its “open-source code” for time-travel concepts, but feels it “requires a rewatch” rather than rewards one. [14:31]
  • Joanna enjoys the puzzle elements and visually admires it, but feels audience alienation is real; Inception and other films balance complexity with wider appeal better.

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3. On Revisiting and Recontextualizing Tenet

Timestamps: [20:10] – [23:58]

• Kuang’s Perspective: First viewing was confusing, but her appreciation has grown with each rewatch:

  “I think of my relationship with Tenet like the protagonist’s relationship with Neil… he doesn’t know what’s going on the first time… I think it deserves all those… rewatch shots for sure.” [20:10]

• Audience Email & Listener Reactions: Tenet is divisive, with enthusiastic defenders and detractors.
• Nolan’s Own Formulation: Cited a 1999 interview in which Nolan described the goal of mixing “productive ambiguity” with narrative clarity—a balance some feel Tenet loses. [23:58]

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4. Tenet as a Swing for the Fences & the Right to Fail

Timestamps: [25:37] – [29:48]

• Kuang & Mallory: Celebrate that Nolan’s blockbuster status gives him room to fail big (cf. Jordan Peele’s Nope), comparing Tenet’s idiosyncrasy to other divisive, ambitious works.
• Legacy & Timing: The “movie to save movies” pandemic marketing set unreal, distorting expectations for Tenet’s theatrical release.

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5. The Bond Influence & Protagonist as Cipher

Timestamps: [33:36] – [41:45]

• Bond DNA: The film’s visual style, globe-trotting locations, suits, femme fatale, and villainy echo Bond, though with Kuang noting the “outsider” status of Washington’s American protagonist as a deliberate twist on the English gentleman spy.

  “He’s just this, like, anonymous column of swag in each and every cultural context…” – R.F. Kuang [35:00]

• Complications of Race: While not a “deep” analysis of race, Kuang muses on Nolan’s “deliberate flattening” that allows black figures to play the central spy, at least as “cipher.”
• The Protagonist as Archetype: Nolan’s interest in faceless ciphers traced to influences from The Prisoner, Man with No Name, Mandalorian, etc.; Kuang finds it “lovely” that the film refuses to manufacture a backstory or inner life.

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6. Core Themes: Faith, Determinism, and Free Will

Timestamps: [45:13] – [52:00]

• Crucial Dialogue: The Sator–Protagonist debate about faith, belief, and agency as emblematic:

  “Without [belief], you’re not human, you’re a madman.” – Protagonist [45:45]

• Nolan’s Consistent Question: “Do your choices matter at all… do you have freedom?” Tenet lands, like Interstellar, in a place where “the boostrap exists, but the rewatches get better and better… you still have to choose… even as if you have no knowledge of the outcome.” – R.F. Kuang [46:56]
• Mallory: Praises this aspect, comparing it to Dark, Arrival—“Would you do these things anyway, if you knew the outcome?” [48:42]

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7. Doubles, Theories & Emotional Payoff

Timestamps: [54:24] – [61:50]

• Doubled Characters: Tenet literalizes Nolan’s long-running “doubles/foils” motif by staging protagonist vs self fights, multiple Neils, and loops (e.g. Kat seeing her own freedom).
• Popular Fan Theories: Proponents posit Neil is actually Kat’s son Max, given hints (Neil = Maximilian backward, physical resemblance, timelines).

  “They have the same fluffy hair… It’s just right.” – R.F. Kuang [57:10]

  • Mallory: The only thing that troubles her is the emotional coldness if Neil-in-Max doesn’t react more strongly to Kat’s peril.
• Narrative Impact: The Neil/Protagonist relationship, echoing Doctor Who’s Doctor and River Song, and the emotional weight of “we get up to some stuff—you’re going to love it” as Neil walks towards certain death for his friend.

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8. Family, Sacrifice, & Thematic Destinies

Timestamps: [61:50] – [65:37]

• Nuclear Family as Nolan’s North Star: Kuang sees Tenet as Nolan’s latest in a line of works obsessed with “nuclear families”: failing fathers, hopeful mothers, loyal children—generational obligations literalized (especially if Neil is Max).

  “You do have this sort of... clear replacing of the father figure where Satyr has renounced his obligations as a father… The protagonist steps in… The shortcut... is his caring about Max, and at least saving the future for this one kid…” – R.F. Kuang [63:22]

• Generational Conflict: Notes the “rosiest interpretation” is a tapestry where parents and children mutually save each other and forge legacies.

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9. On Time Travel, Paradoxes, and Inspiration

Timestamps: [65:27] – [66:44]

• Bootstrap and Grandfather Paradoxes: Recap Nolan’s enduring fascination with time loops, fate, moral choice, and what the possibility of time travel means for parental/familial bonds.
• Kuang's Inspiration: Wrote her own short story, “Making Space,” inspired by Tenet’s temporal inversion and themes of generational guilt.

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10. Favorite Set Pieces and Stuntwork

Timestamps: [71:03] – [90:55]

• Funniest Lines: “I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago” (R.F. Kuang, [71:03]); “You want to crash a plane? Well, not from the air.” (Mallory, [71:11])
• Sickest Set Piece: Choices include the finale’s dual-building demolition, intricately mapped car chase/interrogation, and the Freeport hallway fight—praised for both technical craft and narrative payoff.
• Stuntwork: Choreographing and filming physically reversed action (not just reversing footage) lauded as “pantheon Nolan stuff.”

  “It's just kind of rapturously bel to me and its choreography…” – Mallory Rubin [80:29]

• Other Notables: Cat’s leap off the yacht, bungee jump up the tower, cheese grater fight.

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11. Casting, Accents, and Performances

Timestamps: [85:26] – [100:57]

• Branagh’s Outrageous Sator Accent: Universally acknowledged as “batshit bonkers” but weirdly effective.

  “We quote Sator a lot too, but it's about the last French fry: if I can't have it no one can.” – R.F. Kuang [85:26]

• Best Repeat Collaborator: Michael Caine cameo, Himesh Patel (soon to be in The Odyssey), Martin Donovan.
• Miscast/Controversial Choices:
  • Joanna: John David Washington is cool but wishes for more raw emotion from the protagonist.
  • Mallory: Argues Branagh is “too charming” for unadulterated evil, but overall likes the cast.
  • Kuang: Likes JDW’s restraint, considered recasting Wheeler before Pitt fandom intervened.

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12. Plot Twists, Dead Wives, and Nolan Motifs

Timestamps: [103:00] – [110:24]

• Most Satisfying Twist: Neil’s true relationship with the protagonist and the “temporal pincer movement” structure.
• The ‘Dead Wives’ Trope:
  • Kuang takes a charitable read, seeing Nolan as a romantic who feels “the worst possible thing... is losing your wife and children. So naturally all of his protagonists are like, I gotta get back to my kids and I miss my wife a lot.”
• Nolan’s Most “Nolan” Elements: “Starting a conversation in one place and continuing it in a totally different location as if it’s one conversation” (Rebecca [110:04]), and, of course, time—with many “i’s,” as Joanna jokes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Rewatching:

  “My relationship with Tenet [is] like the protagonist's with Neil… the summation of all the viewings over the years.” – R.F. Kuang [20:10]

• On Incomprehension:

  “I didn't like Tenet the first time I saw it. I was confused. I thought the sound mixing was bad.” – R.F. Kuang [20:10]

• On Nolan’s “Coldness”:

  “I don't get that at all. I find all of Nolan’s films to be deeply moving on a gut level, especially this one.” – R.F. Kuang [11:02]

• On the Film’s Confidence:

  “Everybody commits fully to the bit... people just spit out lines like ‘it’s the detritus of a coming war.’” – R.F. Kuang [13:53]

• On Faith/Determinism:

  “What's happened, happened is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It's not an excuse to do nothing.” – R.F. Kuang [46:56]

• On Emotional Payoff:

  “How could anybody say Tenet’s an emotionally cold movie when Neil walks off and he's like, ‘We get up to some stuff. You're gonna love it.’ I was bawling at that.” – R.F. Kuang [54:09]

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The Odyssey Preview (Special Section)

Timestamps: [110:25] – [127:51]

• Nolan’s Next Film Hype:
  • Kuang: “I am very, very excited. I would say 12 out of [10].” [04:09]
• Why The Odyssey Endures: Kuang connects its narrative DNA to Tenet: themes of fate, free will, and the nuclear family.

  “It’s a story about defending house and home... All three of them have to fight in different ways for the story to have a happy ending.” – [111:45]

• What People Get Wrong: Most think Odyssey is about monsters and travel, but thematically it’s about homecoming, identity, and family reunification.
• Women’s Roles: Discussion of Penelope, the “bad wives” Helen and Clytemnestra (Lupita Nyong’o double-cast), and the limitations and strengths of women’s roles in ancient epic and Nolan’s adaptations.
• Predictions: Kuang predicts a thematic shift toward Telemachus (Tom Holland) taking a central, even concluding, role—seeing Nolan’s perennial interest in fatherhood yielding to stories of children attaining agency.

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Useful Timestamps (Selected)

• [02:34] Rebecca interrupts her vacation for Tenet
• [05:32] Rebecca describes her first watch (graph paper!)
• [11:02] Rebecca’s full-throated defense of Tenet
• [14:25] Mallory’s big-picture take
• [20:10] Rebecca on Tenet as a relationship (to Neil)
• [23:58] Joanna reads Nolan’s 1999 thoughts on narrative ambiguity
• [33:55] Bond influences, US/UK identity, and race
• [45:13] Thematic discussion—faith, belief, determinism
• [54:24] Doctor Who and moving backward/forward in relationships
• [61:50] Nuclear family, parental sacrifice, and legacy
• [71:03] Funniest lines, sickest set-pieces
• [85:26] Branagh’s accent and villainous fun
• [99:49] Discussion of casting, performances
• [103:07] Most satisfying twist
• [110:04] Most “Nolan” thing about Tenet
• [111:45] Odyssey segment begins
• [126:44] Kuang predicts a Telemachus-centered twist for the Odyssey

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Key Insights & Discussions

• Tenet rewards, but almost requires, multiple viewings—something both a strength and flaw, depending on one’s perspective.
• Its emotional resonance is deep for some, particularly around parent-child bonds and sacrifice, though others find the characters cold and inscrutable.
• Nolan’s heady puzzle-box approach, while admired in Inception/Interstellar, may have become too “up his own ass” for broad audience appeal in Tenet, but the House of R crew ultimately appreciates his right to take big swings.
• The technical ambition—practical stunts, reversed action, structural complexity—is uniformly praised.
• Recurring motifs: nuclear family, free will vs determinism, ciphers vs character depth, pop entertainment as a Trojan horse (pun intended) for philosophical inquiry.
• The episode closes with giddy anticipation for The Odyssey, fitting Nolan’s obsessions perfectly—with a wealth of mythological, thematic, and literary insight from Kuang.

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Final Thoughts

• Kuang’s Defense: Persuasive, eloquent, and emotionally invested, Kuang weaves Tenet’s perceived failures into a broader tapestry of Nolan’s ambitions and storytelling virtues.
• Robinson & Rubin: Still rank Tenet in Nolan’s lower tier, but inspired to revisit it with fresh eyes, seeing it as a more integral piece of the Nolanverse than previously appreciated.

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“I think every time I’ve seen it, I’ve only enjoyed it more. So I understand where you’re coming from, but I think it deserves all those… the 8th to 9th, 10th shot for sure.”
— R. F. Kuang [20:10]

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This detailed summary covers all major insights, spirited quotes, and the warm, pop-culture-literate tone unique to House of R. It provides newcomers with both a full map of the discussion and the spirit in which it was conducted.

Transcript

[Mallory Rubin]

Foreign.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Hello.

[Joanna Robinson]

Welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. That's Mallory Rubin and friend of the pod Month continues because we have a very special guest for this tenet episode, Mallory, who's here with us.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, my God. We, I think, have been manifesting this since A Hype Meter last summer. Last summer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

When we talked about one of our most anticipated reads of that year. And not only did we get to read the book and love the book, then you got a note.

[Joanna Robinson]

I did.

[Mallory Rubin]

From the author of that book saying, you guys are wrong about Tenet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Guys are so wrong about Tenet. You could not be more wrong about Tenet.

[Mallory Rubin]

Rebecca is here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rebecca is here. Author of Katabasis is the book we were referring to. But also Babel Yellowface. Like just an incredible author who we so admire. Here to talk about 10. Welcome to the pod. Rebecca, how are you doing?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Hi, I. Thanks for having me. I always love a chance to get in a fight with somebody, so I'm happy for the opportunity to defend what I think is one of Nolan's best works.

[Mallory Rubin]

Amazing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Can't wait.

[Joanna Robinson]

Incredible. Incredible.

[Mallory Rubin]

This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target. Call it all trainers. The Pokemon and target collection, celebrating 30 years of Pokemon is almost here, and the lineup is kind of incredible.

[Joanna Robinson]

A few are sure to be fan faves, Pokemon starter jackets, mystery water type Pokemon bottles, and even caboodles.

[Mallory Rubin]

Which feels perfect because Pokemon has always been about sharing the adventure. And Target is bringing fans together to celebrate that spirit.

[Joanna Robinson]

The first drop is in store May

[Mallory Rubin]

2 online May 3 with the second drop June 6.

[Joanna Robinson]

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[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Take Activia's Gut health challenge by enjoying

[Mallory Rubin]

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[Mallory Rubin]

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[Rebecca F. Kuang]

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[Mallory Rubin]

the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual.

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Try Activia today.

[Mallory Rubin]

Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes

[Mallory Rubin]

gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're coming to us from the other side of the world. Yeah, literally. You have interrupted your birthday vacation to come talk to us about Tenant, and that's how passionately you feel about it.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

As I said, it's my favorite movie and I think one of Nolan's best works, and I think very, very badly misunderstood too. So.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, since. Since folks know that we are tenant haters.

[Mallory Rubin]

They demanded. I would not say a hater. I would not say a hater.

[Joanna Robinson]

They demanded we get a tenant defender on the pod. And I think we have found we have picked our champion.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, it is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rebecca here with us. Quick parking reminders. We are doing. We have one more Friend of the Pod month episode that's coming out allegedly on Friday.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't want to jinx it, so I'm just going to say it's supposed to happen. We hope it happens.

[Mallory Rubin]

We will be talking about Spider Noir no matter what.

[Joanna Robinson]

We'll be talking about Spider Noir at the front of the pod and frieren maybe and some other things. And hopefully with the friend of the pod. We also have our summer hype meter, which we already recorded.

[Mallory Rubin]

We did immediately after recording it. Some dates were released, some trailers were released.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very helpful.

[Mallory Rubin]

We knew it would happen. It's always the risk when you bank a pod.

[Joanna Robinson]

Summer hype meter. And then we're doing a very musical episode while Mallory's out of town. I've. I've recruited a couple of pals to do a very musical episode of House of Ours.

[Mallory Rubin]

So that's coming up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, spoiler warning for tenet all of Nolan's films. And also when we get to the section at the end where we're talking more directly about the Odyssey, spoilers for the Odyssey. Rebecca, on a scale to 1 to 10, how excited are you for the Odyssey?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

We have tickets to see the Odyssey premiere at the BFI IMAX in London. So I am very, very excited. I would say 12 out of.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love it. How. How quickly did those tickets go? Like, how much did you. Did you guys have to, like, hit refresh, refresh, refresh to get those tickets? Or did you have a nice hookup or how did that work out for you?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Well, as it happened, when tickets just globally went on sale, my husband panicked and bought tickets to the London one, which is not a. We live in Boston. But that's not a disaster because we just happen to be in London a lot for work and for conferences and we. He is doing a philosophy conference in Reading just a couple days before, so he got lucky. But we did extend our trip a little bit just for the premiere.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that there was a panic and it's appropriate, you know, you can't

[Mallory Rubin]

risk not getting tickets for the premiere of the Odyssey.

[Joanna Robinson]

We don't have tickets.

[Mallory Rubin]

We don't. I was thinking about that last night, actually. It's like, boy, do we fuck this up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Maybe I Think we'll figure something out. This film, like all the films we've been talking about in this series, is directed by Christopher Nolan. Screenplay by Christopher Nolan, came out September 3, 2020. Pandemic time very famously came out during the pandemic. There was a whole tussle between Chris Nolan and his longtime studio, Warner Brothers, about the release of this movie. I saw it in the drive in. We can talk about. Rebecca, where were. Where did you see Tenet for the first time?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I saw it for the first time on our couch in the living room. So we streamed it, but we've since seen it seven more times, and the second and third times were on the same couch. We were watching it with graphing paper because we thought it would be very fun to track all the forwards and backwards movements and make sense of the interrogation scene in particular. But I've also gotten to see it in imax, which I think was a much better experience. And then at many people's homes since then.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are you. Are you just. Do you like to go around and spread the good word of Tenet? Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Are you evangelizing when you see it at other people's homes? Is it because you're making them watch it so that you can convince them that it's a masterpiece?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

So we have actually recently been to the home of a philosophy professor who's really the Tenet evangelist in his department, and I gather it's Justin Koo who runs the podcast Khus in the Field or Cows in the Field. But I think he just likes to have people over to spread the good word. So it was nice to be evangelized too, by a fellow believer.

[Mallory Rubin]

Amazing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory, you were at home during the pandemic when you watched this, right?

[Mallory Rubin]

I was, yes. This was. This was firmly in the. I'm still afraid to go to the movie theaters. I will not be compelled to go to the movie theater's stretch of the Pandemic for me. And so I watched it at home, which, you know, I don't mind. I love to see a Nolan movie at the theater. This is one of the few Nolan movies that I did not see at the movie theater and still have not seen at the movie theater. But I will say that given what I consider the genuine sound mixing calamities of this film, I didn't mind that I was home so that I could, like take the opportunity to fiddle with the blend, turn on the subtit, etc. It's not necessarily how I want to watch an all in movie, but I do think it's for me personally required to turn on the closed captioning for this one. So I saw it at home basically as soon as it was available on demand, I think. And then I had not revisited it until this project, as I think we alluded to a couple times on the Rewatch. Like, you know, when we were going through our early this is maybe like the Loose in Motion. You know, it's a living document, free to amend as we go through the Rewatch power rankings. And I think we both, you know, kind of hinted a few times that Tenet was going to be towards the

[Joanna Robinson]

bottom for us, not in the top half at least.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then I was very eager to revisit it. And I think as we went through the Nolan rewatch, I became increasingly eager in part because we heard from Rebecca, somebody whose mind we just so admire. We heard from a lot of the bad babies, a lot of our listeners. A lot of the listeners hit us up and were like, guys, you're wrong about Tenet. Let me tell you why you're wrong about Tenet. You have some emails today that you're going to share. Plenty of people I think have notes on Tenet. It's a divisive one of Nolan's more divisive films. But I was very much looking forward to after like studying the filmography in the way that we have over the past year to revisit the movie. And we'll talk about how I found it upon repeat viewing. I've watched it a couple times in the last week and it has been very interesting to go back to it through this lens.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say, to be fair to Chris Nolan, I saw it 3. One time on accident, three times at the drive in. I went twice to the drive in and then the third time, I remember it was election night and we were nervous to be home during the election night cause we were just too nervous. So we went to the drive in to watch. I think they were playing Coco, but Coco was just a short film and over too quickly. So we're like, let's just stay. And then Tenet started playing. So we watched Tenet again. But to be fair to Chris Nolan, sound at the drive in is famously bad no matter what. So Tenet really didn't have an option. But I. So I think watching it at home with closed captioning on was very helpful for me. Budget $205 million worldwide box office $365.9 million, which is impressive for the pandemic, honestly. Like honestly quite impressive. All of that being said, Rebecca, you are a guest of honor. First and foremost, what does Christopher Nolan mean to you?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

He's my favorite director, straight up, and he's a big part of my marriage. I've never met him personally. I first got into him because my boyfriend at who's now my husband was very into him. And we started dating like 10 years ago. And this was a teenage boy from the suburbs, raised on the Dark Knight and Inception. So very typical movie bro. And I was like, yeah, I'll share your hobbies with you. But then we had very special dates going through Nolan's whole body of work, and I think we really fell in love and bonded. Talking about the Prestige, which might. I think the Prestige is my number one in the Nolan rankings, but 10 is pret. And we've seen every Nolan film since Dunkirk in theaters together, so we're fully a Nolan household, a Nolan apologist, in fact. I think there's nothing that Nolan has to apologize for. We find his alleged faults to be virtues. We find the dead wives very charming. And I just have huge admiration for the scale and ambition at which Nolan operates. And I think even when he fails, his failures are fascinating to me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Moment of truth. Give us your big picture. We're going to go in our sort of more granular way, but big picture. Give us your Tenet defense. Not that it needs defending, according to you, but your tenant pitch. Give it to us.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

No, I think it needs defending. I think it takes several watches, and I think it's a film that benefits from interpretation and discussion with other people and gets richer every time. But I think there are three reasons why Tenet is uniquely awesome. And the first is that it is truly innovative in how it portrays time travel. In most time travel stories and movies, the traveling happens instantaneously, and then the traveler is moving in the same direction as everybody else, like physically and metabolically. So it's just like sort of portal fantasies. And I'm reading TH White's the ones in Future King right now. And the character Merlin is fascinating because he's supposedly living backwards through time, but this seems to only really apply every time he wakes up. And then he moves forward through the day with all the other characters, but only in Tenet are they actually causally backwards. And I think the reverse entropy stuff and how that produces such incredible and technical hand to hand combat scenes that is just so impressive and cool to look at. But I think the main reason why I love it on a thematic level, a lot of people call Nolan cold, analytic, rational, whatever. And I've Seen this said a lot of this film, that it is his coldest and most analytic. I don't get that at all. I find all of Nolan's films to be deeply moving on a gut level, especially this one. And you might just have to be the type of person who can be moved to tears thinking about paradoxes of time. But, like, I am that type of person. And I think Tenet is a deeply moving exploration on conflicts between generations and what parents owe to their children and vice versa. And I think it's not accidental that the children in Nolan's films are aging up alongside his actual children. And I think that at least in three of his films, I think these three films form like a thematic trilogy. Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet. I think he's been working through different fantasies about how your relationships with your kids could be different if you could stretch time or dance around its rules. And I adopted this interpretive lens after reading Justin Koos the Professor. I mentioned his essay How I Learned to Stop Worrying and love Christopher Nolan's $200 million Sudoku puzzles. And he makes the very compelling. These are three films about parents coming to grasp with the unbreakable constraints of time and their own limits in how they can care for their kids. So Inception is about what if you could live out your life in a branch timeline where you could remain a childless God of creation and escape your toddlers and how guilty should you feel for having that fantasy? And Interstellar is about what if you end up younger than your children, and what if saving them involves not being there for much of their lives? And Tenet is about what if you and your kids could be the same age and go on adventures together? And I think that's gorge. And then the third reason is just that everybody's moving with such confidence. Like, the movie has so much belief in its own conceit. Like, say what you want about Nolan, but he doesn't make excuses or apologize for his world's building. He just everybody commits fully to the bit, and people just spit out lines like it's the detritus of a coming war. And that is so, so cool. So that's my big picture argument for today.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that parent and child argument. It makes me. I mean, we are so excited to get to the end of this podcast and talk to you about the Odyssey, but now I'm even more excited to talk to you, Telemachus and Odysseus and all that sort of stuff like that.

[Mallory Rubin]

Daddy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory Rubin?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes, ma'? Am.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you want to give us your sort of big picture tenet thoughts?

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. So I love Christopher Nolan's movies. He is also one of my favorite directors as we have now chronicled on many of these podcasts. We've been doing this for a year. I just, I love his movies. So, you know, it's one of those things where it's all perhaps in a fitting metaway, it's all relative, right? In terms of, like, how I rank his films. I think if I saw this movie and it had been made by another director, I might have a different reaction to it. I hold so many of his other movies in such genuine esteem that it just, like, for me, doesn't measure up to them and to how I feel about them. I think that my relationship to Tenant and I love everything you said, Rebecca. And I think what's interesting about Tenet as a film to debate is that I don't actually like, disagree really with any of those contentions. I think those are all really valid, pretty well supported and things that a lot of people are agree with. I think it's a very much a. Like your mileage may vary movie in terms of not only the core offering in a vacuum, but how you consider it as a part of the larger text. So like the Inception Interstellar, Tenant trifecta that you cited, that's just the order of how successful those movies are for me. And that's really interesting because I think that Inception is in some ways the most obsessed with really outlining the laws of the universe and making sure that you understand how things work, which sometimes does not go well. But I find mesmerizing in that film. And I think that it's like, thematically wonderful. I think the performances are great. I think it's very poetic and profound. I love it. Interstellar is a little bit in that middle spot for me where we had a fun time potting about that movie. As we talked about at the time, it's like for a generation, their sacred text. It's beloved by so many people. There are things about Interstellar that I really love and admire. There are things about it that don't work as well for me, which is always surprising to me because the logline of that movie is so extremely my shit that I'm always like, I kind of can't believe that. My reaction to it is not, this is my favorite movie ever made. I think that when you watch Interstellar, for me, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, if you understand or care to understand something like Time dilation, right? You understand the emotional truth of that movie. You understand the relationship between Coop and Murph, like, no matter what, right? I think that Tenet doesn't do that for me. And I. So what I find is that when I watch it, and this has been now, I've seen it three times now, and this is increasingly true every time. So it's definitely possible that in 10 years I watch this and I'm like, masterpiece, just no notes. I think that. I think that actually is in play, that my relationship with Tenet will change over time. I don't know if that will happen, but it's not impossible. I watch it and I have nothing but genuine and sincere admiration for the filmmaking and the craft, the cinematography, the editing. Again, I have notes on the sound mixing, which I think is like. Actually, I think I've made it a bit on these pods, but I think it's like, really kind of a problem. I do think the score is amazing, but, like, the fact that the first line of dialogue uttered in this movie leads to. From the protagonist, leads to our guy, Tyland Lannister saying in response, like, what? I couldn't hear you is a real telling on yourself stuff to me. I think that the ambition of the conceit, the premise is, to me, like, as a sci fi fan, as a time travel story fan, intellectually intriguing and bold in a way that I admire. Like, Nolan is always a filmmaker I admire, and he's a storyteller I admire. I think that this movie is just too convoluted and, like, a little bit too. I don't know, I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth because I just said I admire the ambition. But I think the movie is, for me, a touch too enamored of its own ambition to, like, totally work for me in the way that all the other movies just, like, kind of send me to a transcendent plane of existence as, like, a person who loves stories and loves this kind of genre filmmaking. The action is incredible. It's visually astonishing. I think that some of the aspects of what we see and hear and how the characters function in the world, really interesting. I think that there's a difference between, like, a movie that is rewarding on a rewatch and one that requires a rewatch. I just think that's a little bit different. And Tenet falls into the latter camp for me, but there's a lot about it that I really enjoy. I think the Pattinson performance is God tier. Just unbelievable for all of those Critiques if they said. And the movie basically ends setting up Tenet two. And now obviously, Nolan has left Warner Brothers. He's with Universal, who knows they made Tenet two. I would be there on day one. I would be really interested to see him go back into the world.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

And.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I think, like, Rebecca, to your point, about just the aspects of the. The what are we going to do about time. Time and how we move through time and entropy in a version that's different. Like, when I think about Tenet as basically a cinematic version or a storytelling version of, like, open source code, I love that. I'm interested that this could now become a concept that other creators returned to and played with and explored their version of, because I do think it's interesting. It is in a weird little space to me of simultaneously, like Nolan has talked about. I wanted to make this movie for 20 years. I've been thinking about this since I was a kid. You could tell he's obsessed with it. He wanted to do it first, pass on this exact execution. Would it be better over time? And it's the latest installment of this, continuing exploration of these ideas. And I just think sometimes you go back to the well so many times to explore the same thing in a different way, and it was better the first time or maybe the second time. So that's where I am on Tenet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rebecca, anything you wanna say to what Mallory just said?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, I like your point that some movies are rewarding on the rewatch and some demand them. I think of my relationship. I didn't like Tenet the first time I saw it. I was confused. I thought the sound mixing was bad. I didn't know what was going on. And I felt like some stirrings of emotion at random points. But I was mostly left with, like. I don't really know what happened, but I think about my relationship with Tenet, like, the protagonist's relationship with Neil, like, he doesn't know what's going on the first time they meet, and then he only discovers later, like, he's at the front end for what has been for Neil, a long and rewarding friendship. So I think of my relationship with that movie as like a summation of all the viewings over the years. And I think, yeah, it does demand a rewatch, but the rewatches get better and better. I think every time I've seen it, I've only enjoyed it more. So I understand where you're coming from, but I think it deserves all those, you know, the 8 to 9, 10th shot for sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

And I Love returning to movies and books. So I probably will get to it 8, 9, 10 times before we're all said and done. Maybe we'll all gather again to pot at that point. Jo, what about you? Where are you with Tenet these days?

[Joanna Robinson]

So, yeah, watched it what, three or four times when it first came out and then two times this week and alongside sort of doing my own version of what Rebecca and her husband do with the graph paper, which is just sort of like watching YouTube explainer videos and trying to make sure that I can really understand what's happening on the car chase or, you know, the logic of some of these set pieces, especially like any of the temporal pincer moments I think require a lot of unpacking from me. And there is a way in which that can stimulate my puzzle loving brain. And then there are ways in which it's. It can frustrate me and make me feel like I'm stupid and I don't understand. And I think what's. What's tremendously. I would still put Tenet at the. Towards the bottom of my ranking. Honestly, I do get emotional. I think without that goodbye scene between the protagonist and Neil, I. I think this movie is much more of a failure. But that every time I've watched it, that scene has really gotten to me. I think Pattinson is incredible as Neil throughout. He's like very charming and then very emotional there. I think that's John David Washington's best part of the film is his realizations there and the emotion that he expresses there. I think Elizabeth Debicki's character, Kat, her whole thing I think is really great and interesting this movie. I love that actress so much. So like, you know, and then visually, like we'll talk a little bit about the sort of like the Bond, the James Bond comps. But like visually this is. That's the thing about Christopher Nolan that, that we love is that the way that he makes popcorn cinema, but with these big ideas and big ambitions behind them. And so for something like Inception, which is just a slam dunk for so many people, it's an ambitious puzzle that he's created there. But he never once loses his audience in the making of it for the. For the most part, I would say. And so he has taken big ideas or. Or his like hyper intellectualism because he's one of the smartest people that is. That is out there. But then he's made three Batman movies that people really love, you know, so to almost Trojan Horse smuggle in these huge ideas inside of mass appeal Popcorn Cinema is what is so admirable about Nolan. And I just think he lost the. The bottom fell out of the popcorn bucket a little bit on this one where he just sort of like lost that sort of like general audience. I can come along for this ride.

[Mallory Rubin]

I want it.

[Joanna Robinson]

We have like a couple listener emails in defense of Tenet that I wanted to read most of them sort of sending quotes from something else. But our listener Nick sent over this 1999 interview. Sorry, sorry. The male cow sound, call sound in our ears. Nick said over this 1999 interview. So this was, I think around following. So yeah, before, before Memento even. And Nolan was talking to Elvis Mitchell, who's this, you know, renowned UK film guy. And he was talking about. He says, quote, you need a simple narrative to take the audience through the experience of the film. So you can have something that's quite complicated. But as long as the audience feels they've understood enough of it, then it's peculiar balance between the sort of productive ambiguity or confusion and having given them a story that had a beginning, middle and end and at the end of it they didn't feel like they hadn't understood it. So that's his sort of thesis in 99 is I want to make a memento or I want to make an interstellar, I want to make an inception, I want to make a prestige which is, you know, non linear storytelling which we love. But the audience never gets lost along the way. And my feeling on Tenet is that he lost a lot of the audience along the way. And if you are Rebecca and her husband and are quite ambitious and rewatch and rewatch and rewatch, then you can hook into it on a deeper sort of like snow fortress level of understanding of what's going on there. But like he drifted from his original intention of being this mass appeal director with these high minded ideas. Rebecca DuVernay.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I guess I'm just grateful that Nolan is so successful as a director that he gets to swing and miss like this with his audience sometimes and bounce back and then make the Odyssey. Because I really do have a soft spot for the. When directors and writers I love just really get up their own asses and have clearly stopped caring about the audience and are just pursuing ideas and sort of showing off with rhetorical flourishes. So I feel a similar way about Jordan Peele's Nope, which I think many people find more inaccessible and confusing than get out, which has a really tidy hook and doesn't let the audience feel at any point like they don't really get the message. And nope. Is about a lot of things. I think it's more ambitious. I think it's harder. I think it lost people and I love it. And I think I love Tenet for the same way. And I think it would just be so sad if a director never got a budget to make a huge commercially appealing film film again after a miss like that. But because it's Nolan, I'm glad that he gets to make the Dark Knight trilogy and then he gets to make this and then go back to the Odyssey.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I really agree with that. I think that's a great point. And one of the things I'm very conscious of as I critiqued him in a film that I still think is really interesting and I'm glad exists, but think is flawed for me. I. I also feel that way about it still. Like, I'm glad it exists. I'm glad he made it. And one of the things that I find so, I don't know, just like fun and interesting about being in the world when Chris Nolan is making movies is that he's kind of always like, let me go for it in. In any form, no matter what genre he's playing in, whether he's on his ninth movie with Michael Caine or his first one with DeBecky and Pattinson and. And John David Washington, whatever the case may be, he's like, this is the story I have wanted to tell and I know exactly how I want to tell it. Right to the point where he was out there. Like, we're going to save movies. This is the movie that's going to save movies. Which I think is like, well, that's inextricable from the legacy of the film now, but won't be forever. I think we're still so close to that that it's like.

[Joanna Robinson]

That takes me to another email we got. Our listener, Sam sent along a great essay by Brennan Hodges called Beside you in Time. It's a beautiful essay. It's quite long about Tenet, but it does touch on that idea of like, the sky high expectations that were on Tenet when it came out during the pandemic is just sort of like. Of all the times for Nolan to get extra experimental and extra up his own ass, if you prefer the like, it's the pandemic and no one's going to the movies here. We'll get people to, like, go out to the drive in or whatever the case may be. The stakes were just disproportionate for that. And if, like, Inception had come out during that time or one of the first two. Batman or something like that. It would be so much different. This is the section from that essay I wanted to read. So Tenet quote. Tenet was never going to be the savior of cinemas. Christopher Nolan's impressionistic sci fi action love story is the most abstract, challenging, frustrating, uninhibited, dissonant dudes rock hell yeah movie of his career. But Tenet is also cold. Cold as ice. Rebecca says no, but this person says yes. Evasive, brutal and overwhelming. I don't know if the studio or even Nolan himself knew what they had. 200200 million curio somewhere between misfire and masterpiece. Destined to polarize and attract in uneven ratios. The worst possible framing for Tenet was as a unifying prayer for the enduring strength of the theatrical experienced dropped at a time you could get sick going to see it and confronting audiences with an art house vibes heavy blockbuster that pauses to ponder metaphysics and quantum agency instead. Tenant should have been marketed as Christopher Nolan movie that will you up that our favorite cinematic clockmaker is finally letting his hair down with a sci fi epic that will make gloriously, rapturously little to no sense. Rebecca, what do you think about that as an assessment?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think that's a good way of putting it. Nolan has let his hair down and I just. When I admire somebody's mind so much, I really love the chance to just follow their whimsy wherever they want to take it without the constraints of studio pressure, audience pressure. So I'm so happy for this glorious commercial failure.

[Mallory Rubin]

I think I love it.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's so fun.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm loving the letting the hair down up his own ass. Cause like I hear up his own ass and I'm thinking, you know what, let's actually go. To me, the problem's not that the movie's up its own ass. Let's go further. Tell us literally, if an inverted character sits on the toilet, does the shit go up their ass? Like I want to know more. I don't want the like the Fleur Delacour to tell me just like feel it. I don't know, it's a little bit betwixt and between in that sense. I think of the movie a little bit as to use something inside of the movie as a comp. The racing sailboats, like the high speed floating up on the water. Racing sailboats. Like I look at them. I don't know anything about sailing, right? Much as I am not a metaphysicist or a physicist. I look at those sailboats and I'M like, pretty. Those look dope. They look fast, they look fun, they look dangerous, they look scary. I understand without really understanding that only certain people would be able to handle them and only certain people would know how they move.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Mallory Rubin]

That doesn't really compel me to want to spend my time in one of them. And I think that that's part of. So it's fascinating. Like, I, I genuine. I don't like, generally when we're about to pot about something to, like, hear what a bunch of other people had to say about something. But because of the COVID time capsule nature of this, I like, went back to refresh on what some people were saying at the time. And it was what I. It was what I remember because I was like, am I, like, exaggerating in my mind how big the specter of how could you or could you not see Tenet? And what was like, yeah, I don't like Christopher Nolan saying about it, but like Tom Cru about movies. I'm on the phone with the insurance company and I'm saving movies. Right. This was just like a thing. And that is inextricable from how people are talking about Tenant. So that's just not going to be the case in 10 years if someone sits down and watches Tenant for the first time and has no awareness of and is not thinking about when Tenant was released and how long it was delayed and how it was positioned or any of that. But I have a hot take that I don't know if I totally believe, but I'm going to, I'm going to throw it out there anyway. I think we think that, like, the COVID timing and thus the, you know, I agree with what you said. Like, it's for, for the pandemic especially, that's actually pretty good box office, but it's not what you would expect for, like, a Nolan blockbuster. I think there's a chance that actually Tenet would be, like, more debated and derided if more people had seen it right away. I actually think, like, the slow drip of people coming to it, it slightly muted the volume. Just the heft of. I don't understand what the is happening in this movie. And, like, why don't the people who made it want me to understand it? I. Did either of you by any chance watch the Making of Tenet featurette? That's like, on the. I don't know if it's online. It's on the 4K. It's like an hour and 15 minutes. It's fascinating. If you watch this movie and you're like, this is the most visually stunning thing I've ever seen. You should watch this. Like, the. It's the editor and cinematographer or like, a lot of the stuff about stunt choreography, all of it that. I'm being, like, slightly hyperbolic here, but not really. I would say 90. None of that is about the story of Tenet. All of it is about the craft of Tenant, which is very notable. Right. And I think that, like, probably no fewer than 743 times does somebody in the making of Tenant say, here's a story from the set about how I didn't understand the movie we were making. I think that's not great. I think that's not great.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm glad that you brought up the. The sailboats, because I want to talk about this sort of, like, idea that Christopher Nolan always wanted to make a Bond film, and he made this movie instead. Rebecca, how much were you thinking about James Bond when you were watching this movie or any of. Of the hallmarks of the Bond franchise

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

inside of this movie? I thought the Bond coding was what made it really commercial and easily digestible, and that was like the candy pill in which you shoved all the metaph. But I. Yeah, I mean, there's. There's definitely a lot of Bond tropes going on. I think in watching Tenet, in comparison to, like, an actual Bond film, though, I'm really fascinated in what English manners and English, like, genteel culture are doing here. Because in a Bond film like, Bond is everything that is best about the British. Like, he. He knows how to wear his suits. Shaken out, stirred. But 10 of the protagonist is. Is really not that he's an outsider. He's a black American. He doesn't have the accent, but he's still more badass than everybody else. And he still knows where to get his own suit. He doesn't need a recommendation for a tailor.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

And there's just this, like. There's this attitude that he brings into everything. Like, I think the waiter is like, sir, blah, blah, blah, I presume. And he's like, presume away.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

So the comparisons, I. I think I found John David Washington even more sexy than Bond because he's just this, like, anonymous column of swag in each and every cultural context. And I. For a long time, I've, like, you know, because people talk about Nolan in the context of not being very good about race or not thinking about race, but I'm fascinated in how his characters operate, at least like totally anonymous ciphers, in either deliberate ignorance or in a deliberate, like, flattening of cultural, ethnic, racial context, etc. So I think it's like a really interesting counterpiece to Bond, but I do think the racial analytics probably end there.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do think, you know, he has talked about how he wrote this role for John David Washington out of seeing blackkklansman. And that's rare for Nolan to talk about writing a role for an actor, you know, especially this, like, central role. And, and so I do wonder if, you know, I don't think this is a particularly like, deep, deep, deep analysis of what it means to be a black American in the Caucasian English spy world, but I do think, you know, if he absorbed any of the critiques of how white his films are or anything like that, if he was like, I'm interested in taking this compelling black actor that I saw in this film, John David Washington, and building this and making him my Bond, essentially. So I, you know, I wonder if that was reactionary at all. But when you start to line up the comps when you have this sort of like opera house, cold open mission, fancy car chases, that silver Saab especially, I would say globe trotting locations, a femme fatale, if you want to call Kat that you can, a heavily accented villain. And we will talk about Branagh plenty gadget download with a queue of sorts. You know, the, the suits, the watches. Mallory, how much are you thinking about Bond when you're watching? A lot.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I think. And it's fun knowing how influential, how seismic the hold the Bond has on Nolan is. Of course that like, adds an extra degree of, of kind of having a top of mind. But I think if you didn't know that at all, you would still feel the Bond just oozing off of this. You know, you feel the Michael Mann influences. You, you feel a lot of Nolan's influences here, which is, is part of what makes it like a really interesting and ripe for, you know, analysis installment in his filmography. I think the, the, all of the locations that you mentioned, I mean, this is a, and visually in a lot of different ways and obviously the globetrotting nature of it is a huge part of that. It's a travelogue, the idea you believe that these characters would be able to just move about the world in this fashion. Right? So that's one of the really fun things about a Bond movie. It's one of the fun things about Tenet you mentioned, the suits, the fashion. This is a great, I do think this is actually a great example of not my influence with a Little tweak. Everyone is besuited. But then you have the polo shirt as, like, the specific style and specific choice under the jacket. I think that's like, a great way to give the protagonist his look. And, you know, on the, like, the. The protagonist is a cipher. Is. Is there to. To stand in for certain ideas, you know, in many ways.

[Joanna Robinson]

So is Bond.

[Mallory Rubin]

Right. Bond is one of the great, like, archetypes, you know, many different.

[Joanna Robinson]

Reboot, reboot, reboot, yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Come in and inhabit Bond. But we understand who James Bond is, you know, who 007 is. So I think that those comps and influences feel very, very present. And I like what Rebecca is saying a lot about that kind of rapper that allows then Nolan to explore these really heady ideas. And even if they don't always all land in every single movie, I'm glad that he has the desire to continue to explore them, because we're nerds, right? So it's really fun to have everybody go to the movie and think that they're gonna just watch people punch each other, which they do. Or rub cheese graters on each other's cheeks, which they do. Or flip their cars, which they do. Or have a plane crash into a freeport, which they do. By the way, my favorite single, favorite moment in this making of this was iconic. Pattinson, I'm paraphrasing, was like, you know, and you're wondering, like, how are they gonna achieve a plane crashing into this terminal? And, like, the way they're gonna achieve it is by crashing a plane into this terminal. But these Robert Pattinson saying is very funny. And then they're going to make you think about entropy and inversion and, like, you know, you have to feel what's happened happened. Right. The free will and determinism and how these things relate to each other. I love stories that make us think about those things and ask those things. And I love that for a lot of people, this is a movie that not only gets those wheels turning in their brain, but, like, sends them to Reddit, where they're going to post theories on message boards and talk about those theories with each other. I think that, like, for a lot of people, Tenet is a movie that they not only love watching and thinking about, but love discussing. So I think that's awesome. I love that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. I do think Tenet is a movie that I admire more than I like. Yeah. And in terms of the discussion that is generated. And this is Nolan's great trick that he does. Right. Which is. I think it was maybe from that feature that you're talking about, or perhaps a different one? No, it was the Colbert interview where Nolan was talking about how the first screening they ever did for Memento, he was asked in a Q and A after sort of like, what the ending means. And he says, well, I want everyone in the audience to decide for themselves what it means, but this is what I think it means. And then his brother, Jonathan Nolan. My favorite Nolan is like, you can't ever do that again. Don't ever, ever tell the audience. And he's like, oh. But I sort of caveated with. I. I wanted them to figure it out for themselves. And he's like, they won't pay attention to that part. They will just pay attention to what you said. So never explain what the top spinning means. Never expl. What's really at the heart of interstellar. Never explain what the fuck is going on in Tenet at all. I think that's fascinating. All right, Rebecca, anything you want to say more that we haven't already said about this idea of the protagonist as, like, a cipher? The. You know, Nolan is cited the Prisoner, a beloved Sci Fi television show, or Sergio Leone's man with no Name, or if you prefer more recent, the Mandalorian.

[Mallory Rubin]

Like these faceless Put Grogu in tenant. And then we're cooking. Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

What is the. I mean. Cause I do think for a lot of people, the fact that the main character of this movie is called the protagonist is one of the easiest things to roll your eyes at. But, Rebecca, fond of people with their heads up their own asses, you probably love. How do you feel about this?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Sometimes I just like when Nolan admits his weaknesses and he's like, I'm not interested in a baby backstory. I'm not interested in cultural context. There's just this guy, and he does stuff, and I'm just gonna call him the protagonist. And I find that lovely. But actually, I was laughing, Mallory, while you were talking about how the movie is so uninterested in explaining itself to the audience. Because I was thinking of the scene where they're in the shipping container and the protagonist is sitting there, like, begging Neil to explain anything. It's like tweets.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I have more questions.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

And he's just like, whatever. Sleep. I'm sleepy.

[Mallory Rubin]

Incredible.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

That's the movie's whole attitude, like, whatever.

[Mallory Rubin]

Totally.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Rest. You'll feel better in the morning.

[Joanna Robinson]

No question. I love it. This is sort of more of a visual. Harder to talk about on a podcast, but in case people don't know about the. The Seder Square. Yeah. There's this curio that has been found at various archaeological sites. That is a square that says sort of Seder Arepo, Tenet, Opera Rotus. And it. So it. You can read it across or you can read it down. And there are a lot of theories, none of which are full proof or airtight or solid, about what this particular tablet, which has been found in many different locations in a way that. That historians and archaeologists cannot create a unifying theory to explain it. But it is, you know, it is never raised in this movie. But obviously Branagh's character is named Satyr. There is a character named Arepo. There is. Tenet is the center of this. There's the opera house. And Rotas, which is Satyr's

[Mallory Rubin]

name.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very vain flip of his own name, name of his company. So it's. All of those things are here. And it's that sort of like sideways, upside down, backwards, forwards sort of experience. When you think about that, is that the sudoku of this all? Like, what do you think about that, Rebecca? When you think about the Seder Square?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think there's not a lot to unlock with the Seder Square. I think it's just cool. And the words are cool. I do like that he was like, seder, Arepo. That's clearly Russian and Spanish. That's fine. Those are no names. We were giggling, thinking about Rotas, because we're like, oh, yeah, that's the construction company that makes the turny things. And then we're like. Because they rotate rotas. But I think the only Easter egg I can read in here, which is not even part of the square, is. I was thinking about why it's Goya the artist that Rambo gets. Also, like, when you think of Arepo, do you just think of, like a faceless, limbless, like, barely alive, like, Pod? Like, I'm like, what did he do to a repo? He can't walk, he can't fall. What is he up to? But I was thinking about Goya, because Goya is very famous for that painting, Saturn Devouring his Young, which is not in the film. But I just. I think it's gotta be because of that painting, right? Because it's about older generations cannibalizing the future. That. That's the painting Lizzie Dibeke is in trouble for.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that. As for Tenet itself, as not only the center of the Satyr square and the codename here, but this idea of faith and belief as it pertains to the protagonist, there's this exchange that he and Satyr have over the phone towards the end, when the protagonist says, you don't believe in God or a new future or anything outside your own experience. And Satir's life says, that's all any of us knows. The rest is belief, and I don't have it. Right. And the protagonist says, without it, you're not human, you're a madman. Sator says, or a God of sorts. And protagonist says, like I said, just

[Mallory Rubin]

some great accent corner work from you. Thank you.

[Joanna Robinson]

So this idea of, like, Sator mocking the protagonist for his faith, for his belief in the design of, you know, the. The people who are working in the future, which is a very interstellar concept. Who are these advanced beings who have sent this idea back to us? Oh, it's ourselves. Like that happens in Interstellar, and it happens here as well. The protagonist, we find out, is following his own plan because he's the one who created the Tenant Organization in the first place, but he doesn't know that, and he's sort of blindly believing in this design in the. In this plan. What I think is really interesting is there's a line that comes after this exchange in the screenplay that didn't make it into the movie where Sater says, you know, God, he killed his son too. Like a very, very tough line that no one's like, maybe not. Maybe we don't put that in there. Rebecca, talk to me about belief and faith and determinism and how you think about it when you think about this movie.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah. This is the part of the film that I think is very emotionally resonant for me, because I think that Nolan ends up in this, like, beautifully, like, anti pessimistic, like really human place. I think going back to Interstellar, no one's really interested in the question of agency and freedom within Bootstrap paradoxes. Like, how much do you get to take credit for if your future self has already fixed things for you? Do your choices matter at all? Do you have freedom? Do your choices have normative significance? Or are you just following a predetermined script? Is there anything you can do about your fate? And in Tenet as well as Interstellar, the fact that the boost is strap exists doesn't absolve you from choosing to risk your life and give it your all, as if you have no knowledge of the outcome. And that's concretized in the exchange between Neil and the protagonist when Neil's like, well, what's happened, happened, which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It's not an excuse to do nothing. And I strike. I think that strikes a very nice compromise between determinism and free will. And it's also. So my husband's a philosopher, so I asked him lots of questions about how people think about choice and free will. And, you know, if everything we do is a chain reaction or of all the molecular interactions that have comprised us since we were born, then what significance do our choices have? And exactly what Neil says, that's not an excuse to do nothing at all. You still have to choose to throw yourself into the black hole. You still have to choose to keep risking your life and take bullets and save the future, as if you're not sure the future will be saved. So it's a choice to. You can't opt out of the bootstrap, but it's still existing, exists. You still have to be a part of it. And I think that's lovely.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I. I really agree. Like, this is actually something that works really well for me in the movie

[Joanna Robinson]

and that I love.

[Mallory Rubin]

And in general, you know, if it's like a show like Dark that I love. Like, I love when a movie like a rival. Right. There's once when a story actively interrogates. If you knew an outcome, would you do these things anyway? And then what does it mean if you do? And how do you carry that with you? And how do you keep it from other people? The idea that like the. In some cases just mere awareness and obviously a lot of tenet is also about that you have these keywords and these phrases and it opens some. Some of the doors that it opens are good and some are bad. Right. Like splitting up information, all of that. Just this kind of like acknowledgment that's. It's like a quiet like a hum in the air in the entire film, that awareness of this at all inevitably radically alter something about the way you live your life. How could it not? Right. And so I love the Neil protagonist relationship and what we learn at the end, which like you feel building, but it's still very satisfying. And that exchange, Rebecca, that you cited is probably my favorite moment of the movie. It's not an excuse to do nothing. Like, I think it's great in this film. It's great for those characters and it's great overall. Like, if you're interested in free will and destiny and how these things relate to each other. The idea of like, I like stories that make us think about compatibilism and how you can and should exert free will, even if There is something fixed in time. I think the way the movie dabbles with, like, moments where a character, very actively, not just. I mean, there's choice everywhere, but, like, can say three or four times throughout the movie, what's happened's happened. But then, like, really in an animated fashion, dive forward, like Neil does, to stop an outcome. Right. It's like that shows us the truth of that belief. Like, I cannot just stand by and wait for things to play out. Maybe it's because I believe on some level I had always done that thing and so I must do it. But maybe it's because I'm a human being and I have to take action. If I see something happening in front of me, I think that's, like, really great inside of this movie. So I. I love that part of it. And then you have the kind of slight, menacing whisper in the undertone of something like Sator also saying later, you know, your faith is blind. You're a fanatic on the call. And it's like, well, that's a little scary when we think about the fact that the protagonist, he's the one, right? When he says to Priya on the cards, like, I wasn't working for you. We were both working for me. And it's like. Like, well, right reasons, wrong outcome. Right outcome. That's when the movie gets my mind racing in a way I like much more so than, like, do I totally understand how everyone is moving through this scene and.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Why. And why would people choose to do this in the first place? If you couldn't breathe, like, that's. That's what I'm like. But just the. The question about how people behave and why, I really like. And I think the overall, like, concept around that of just the future at war with the past, this temporal war, the temporal pincer movements, the. The mini actions inside of the larger actions. That stuff's really compelling, I think, as like a. A tapestry to explore these ideas against even something at the end. You know, Ives, like. I think Aaron Teller Johnson is kind of underutilized in this movie. You know, how I feel about him. It's. He's a. He's a passion of mine. I wish we got more of Ives and more of him in this movie. Make Kraven to happen. But, you know, the moment at the end, it's like, we gotta divide these. We've gotta. It's on us. And, like, we're also, you know, the only people who. People who know about this can't, like, move forward. Right. Maybe it's up for every man to decide on their own when that time is. You know, like, even the characters who understand more than anybody else what the stakes are just have that human impulse to say, not ready to die yet. But then you have Neil who's like, I understand exactly the fate that awaits me, and I am prepared for it. So that's all great.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do think that Neil's choice, again, that exchange between the protagonist and Neil, when Neil reveals, sort of like that they've known each other a long time, that this is the end, that he knows it's the end, and whether or not he figured that out right that very minute of like, I'm the only one who could open that door, or if he's known all along this is his last mission. That remains slightly unclear to me, and I don't mind that ambiguity. But the idea that the protagonist will then go forward in their relationship, always knowing what the end was and, you know, if he's the one who recruited Neil in the first place, it's that very much that arrival question of, like, knowing that you. This will ultimately lead to Neil's death and recruiting him anyway. You know, the. The moving in different directions through time relationship that I was thinking about the most. And a lot of our listeners wrote in with this comp is a Doctor who. The Doctor and River Song, who initially meet. The first episode where the character of River Song shows up at the end of David Tennant's run is her last day with him, but he's never met her. And so that's very much where we find Neil and the protagonist here on, like, his. Neil's last mission and the protagonist's first mission. That's, like, where their timeline coincides. And the protagonist carrying that knowledge without being able to tell Neil that through the rest of their relationship is so impactful. Rebecca, you are nodding beautifully. Anything you want to add to that?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah. How could anybody say Tenet's an emotionally cold movie when Neil walks off and he's like, we get up to some stuff. You're gonna love it. I was bawling at that.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

It's just. It's really gorgeous.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I ask you. Okay, so we've been. We've been discussing throughout our Nolan run about this idea of the double inside of Nolan, where we are all three huge prestige lovers. So that is obviously, like, a core. And we've been tracking the various doubles, the various foils throughout this. I think nowhere is it more literalized than in this movie when you have the protagonist literally fighting Himself twice inside of this movie. Or you have, like, six different. Neil's kind of running all over the place. He's at the Opera House. He's, like, all over this battle. You know, tons of Neils going around everywhere. You've got most, you know, crucially, Cat seeing herself jumping off the ship and being inspired by the freedom of that woman, then finding out that it was her all along who jumped off that ship. All of that stuff is here. And then we've got all these, like, fan theories again. Like, we love the discussion around the. The constant Reddit threads that are being generated around this movie. There's a lot of, like, this character is actually this character, like, Aaron Taylor Johnson showing up with that particular specific accent, I think makes a lot of people wonder if he is actually the younger version of Michael Caine's character. Sir Michael Crosby, who shows up later a very. Like, that's not Aaron's accent. So he was directed to do an accent that matches Michael King's accent to a certain degree. Barbara Clement's ponce Pussy, who you. Who you call Flor Delacour. That Barbara is the future scientist, or she shows up and she's pregnant. Is she pregnant with the future scientist? Like, is that a connection? But the most compelling one, and the one that I feel like has to be true, and especially as it feeds into what Rebecca was saying about what if you could run around and be the same age as your own kid is the Neil is actually young Max theory. So, Rebecca, do you buy into anything you want to say about doubles in general or that Neil is Max theory that everyone loves to talk about?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think that's right. I think I clocked that on my first viewing. I was actually surprised that it was controversial because I think it's, like, as much as, like, no one, like, winks hard about anything. I think there are some very strong links and. And the first time I had the gut instinct it was true is they're either in the shipping container or they're on the boat at that point. And the protagonist is talking to Kat, and she's like, does my son survive? Like, is he gonna die? And the protagonist's like, no, he will. And then he looks at Neil, like, very explicitly, and that's the last thing you see before that shot ends. Also, Neil is the last four letters of Maximilian backwards. So. So I think, there you go. Yeah. And they have the same fluffy hair, and he has the posh English accent. I just think that's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think making Pattinson dye his hair blonde for no Reason other than to match that child is a very. Is like, one of the most. You know, I love.

[Mallory Rubin]

And also to match Christopher Nolan's hair.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah, Christopher Nolan's hair. The knotted scarves are very Nolan Cody. He's like, what if the coolest character in this movie would look like me? Mal, where are you in the doubles? And the max is Neil Theory, the

[Mallory Rubin]

characters interacting with versions of themselves, despite the words of caution from, you know, I mean, McKay is here. What a time to be a fan of the Pit.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's really good stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, you have your words of caution, but then the moments where, like, I like some of the subtler ones. I don't know if anything's super subtle in the car chase sequence, but, like, when the protagonist sees him, oh, I was the one driving the Saab, et cetera. Of course, the hallway fight is the best version of it. That stuff's always just like. I think none of it, I think, is really surprising. I don't think it's actually intended to be surprising. Even the string on Neil's backpack, we understand right away that that will be something we're supposed to look for and track and understand that when that character is revealed to us, it will be somebody we have spent a lot of time with. Right. So there are only a couple candidates. I kind of like all of those theories about. About who characters could be. I think it feels very likely inside of a Nolan story that that's true, that maybe all of those are true and. Right. I guess the only thing I don't like about it is that I think of Neil as a very feeling character. Like a character who is actually, like, oozing emotional energy throughout the film. And if he's like, it's ask. I think it's like, kind of asking a lot for us to accept that that's his mom who's been torn apart by an inverted round. And he's like, we should, like, go about our business. I don't know. I'm not totally sure about that. I would love that part of it. Other than that, though, it does track for me. And I feel like if we got Tenant 2 parts, the roadmap of Tenet 2 would be revealing that all of the characters in Tenet 2 were characters we had met in some other form in Tenet 1. Like, that feels very probable to me.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's this line that Neil has again in that scene, which is undoubtedly my favorite scene of the movie, when he talks about going back and weaving another pass in the fabric of this mission. A really beautiful way to think about sort of these various tenet members of the tenant organization just weaving in and out of time on the loom of time. And this idea that sometimes when you get these theories that all these characters are connected or Aaron Taylor Johnson's character is Michael Caine's character, I'm like, that makes the world feel small. That's narrow. But I kind of like the idea of tightening the weave on this particular story. And it's just a very closely woven. And the idea of the more characters who are talking to people they already know and pretending that they don't know them or they've just met them or something like that is just like a fun thing to be doing.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. And the Doctor and River were on my mind too, for that same reason. I think it's really interesting to think about, you know, so much of this movie and Nolan's movies are about concepts and intellectual curiosity, but also they are about humanity and how we think about our own humanity and relate to each other's humanity. And when with Neil and the protagonist, the river and the Doctor, the idea that, like, okay, what is a relationship? Just at the most basic level, it is getting to know another person and allowing them to, like, discover who you are too. So the idea that that person who you were forming a relationship with could have a different understanding of who you are than even you possess or are aware of is, like, so delicious to play with. And I love the idea too, that we are witnessing in that very moving sequence also one really unique in the span of this, like, meaningful experience together moment of total truth and transparency. That, like, there's always somebody who's got to withhold something and then here it is and how rare that is. That's just like, kind of fascinating and cool. And I think that, like, you know something about the. The. The protagonist as cypher, like we talked about is. Is compelling. Right. I think the thing that is missing is understanding anything about who that character is or why he does the things he does. I think we'll come back to that probably in some of the categories. But, like, that could change over time if we, like, had some of this. This person is revealed to be this person and this scientist is revealed to be the scientist.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mallory Rubin is just coming out as the number one. Make Tenet two happen.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, I would love Tenet two. I would love Tenet two. And again, I want to keep thinking about the movie over time. I think the way the films are in conversation with each other, as we've already talked about, is Interesting too, in terms of the future and the past. And that's relevant here to what we're talking about. You know, in Interstellar, the future is saving, is facilitating the continuation of humanity. Right. Which then facilitates those members of humanity being alive to save humanity. So that's like a very positive view. Horrible things happen, the blight, et cetera. We have torn our world apart. Obviously that's present here too. But the idea that the future of humanity would. Would not only persevere, but care enough about its own past to sustain itself is like kind of a charitable read, right? I think there's a view of Tenet where the idea that the future, obviously everything with Seder, like one man who's like, if I can't have it, no one can. Very grim, I think. Totally believable, by the way, but very grim. But the idea that the future is like grandfather paradox. We're not really worried about it. We can't allow you guys to continue fucking shit up. Um, it's. It feels actually extra important then inside of that for these characters who we've grown attached to, to say our relationship to this is going to be to try to do something good for the past, to try to keep things going, because otherwise it's just all very bleak. And I think that doesn't feel like actually Nolan's intention.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rebecca, any thoughts on that?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, I like where all this is going. I think I would add one more interpretive layer on top of what Mallory is saying and point out that Nolan loves nuclear families. Like, thematically, he's really interested in a dad to get back to his wife who's usually dead, and the kids. And Oppenheimer, he's just interested in nukes. But I think, like, the bonds of the nuclear family being the person to person manifestation of these, like, broader, like, social obligations, I think are another reason, I think a strong reason why Max is nil, to bring that back in. Because you do have this sort of like, not Oedipal, but sort of clear, like replacing of the father figure where Satyr has like, renounced his. His obligations as a father. He says, you know, the worst thing I ever did was bring a child into a world I knew was ending. Too bad for him, basically. But if I can't have the world, nobody can. So he has stopped caring about the future, both for other generations that could come from him and his own son. And then the protagonist steps in and as Mali points out, we don't know a lot about him. We don't know his motivations. There's really no reason why we would believe that he cares about saving the future, except that he's already passed a test that he would die just to, you know, obey to carry out a mission. And because there's no better, there's no other, like, contextual scene in which the protagonist's, like, moral obligations are really displayed. The shortcut to that is his caring about Max and his caring about at least saving the future for this one kid and caring about Kat. So you have this father, father figure who wants to preserve the figure for the sake of the son. And then you have a mother figure who also wants to fight for the future for the sake of the son. And then, beautifully, you have a child who comes back and is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the parents. So I think the nuclear family bonds, like, concretize the rosiest interpretation of how everybody's thinking about their generational obligations.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love that.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that we've talked about bootstrap paradoxes, grandfather paradoxes, all kinds of paradoxes. Any other time travel concepts or that you want to bring up here, Rebecca?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I will mention that I was so inspired by Tenet that I ended up writing this short story called Making Space, and I think it's just available as a digital download out there. So I really like the idea of the future taking revenge on the past, and I wanted to use that premise to investigate questions about parenthood and fertility and what it means to bring life into a world that a lot of people think is ending. So we're the story where, essentially, this couple that hasn't had any luck with ivf, they find this creepy abandoned child in the forest and then decide to adopt him. And then a series of events happens, and it turns out that child has been sent back in time as a climate refugee, and he's tainted with this virus that renders all the people he touches infertile. So he's literally making space for all the other kids who are about to be sent back to be found and be cared for, because all the parents in this time, this generation that is so selfishly destroying the planet can't have kids anymore. So that's my contribution to Nolan's thematic inquiries.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's awesome.

[Mallory Rubin]

Incredible.

[Joanna Robinson]

Anything else we want to mention? I will just say just sort of, like, we've talked a lot about as we've gone through these Nolan movies, we talked a lot about the impact of the movie. And outside of, like, Tenet, as this sort of, like, grand failure to a certain degree, splits Nolan and his longtime studio, Warner Brothers, but he goes to Universal and makes Oppenheimer and when he makes Oppenheimer, he just like wins all the Oscars. And it's a real, it's a real fuck you to Warner Brothers, honestly, at the end of the day. But to your point, Rebecca, in this sort of blank check way, he can, he can do a huge swing and a miss on Tenet and they get all the resources in the world to make Oppenheimer and somehow, along with Barbie, get everyone out into the theaters to see, of all things Oppenheimer and then get to make the Odyssey, a movie that we could not possibly be more excited for. 12 out of 10 excitement levels. So incredible. Incredible work from Nolan. Anything else you want to say in a big picture way? We've mentioned the sound in the Ludwig Gorenson score, which is incredibly. This is a swing away from Hans Zimmer. He brings in Ludwig Goranson, who. Who is astonishing and incredible. Anything else you want to say, Rebecca, in a big picture way? About tenant before we get to our categories. We did it. We did it. Mallory, you ready?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, I think we did it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Ready?

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, let's go to our tenant. Top 13.

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[Joanna Robinson]

as is the case with all the Nolan movies, we've got categories that all have little Nolan quotes from various movies in front of them. This is an idea I had over a year ago and do I have regrets about it? Who's to say? But here we are. So the first category is why so serious? Funniest line or most from the film. Rebecca, what do you think?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

It's gotta be. I ordered my hot sauce in hours.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a great one.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's really good. I love that one.

[Joanna Robinson]

What's yours? Mallory.

[Mallory Rubin]

Okay, mine is you want to crash a plane.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, not from the air.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't be so dramatic. And then building toward will hop make a plane. All right. Well, that is a little dramatic. It's very appreciate. It's very. Don't be afraid to dream a little bit bigger, darling. Very Tom Hardy in Inception. In that moment. Not from the air. Don't be so dramatic.

[Mallory Rubin]

Really good there are I actually I think this is a funny movie. There are. There are good little moments.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't let it get cold moments. Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

When the protagonist is taking the deep breaths to prep for the gas coming into the room and Neil looks to claws and he's like yoga. Like that's hysterical. You know the suit conversation that. Rebecca, you already alluded to that whole exchange between Sir Michael and the protagonist is like, really amusing. Save the world, then we'll balance the books, you know. Well, British son of a monopoly on snobbery, you know, not a monopoly, more of a control. That's wonderful. It's great. I also really love when Satyr says, but we do live in a twilight world.

[Joanna Robinson]

And the protagonist says, is that Whitman?

[Mallory Rubin]

Pretty great.

[Joanna Robinson]

Excellent. All right. Speaking of, you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. Sickest set piece. Rebecca, what do you have for this?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Well, I have two. I like when the. Obviously the whole final fight and when the building explodes at the top and then the bott. But reconstructs. But it took me a while to put it together. But I think the car chase heist scene and then the interrogation when Satyr shoots Kat with the reverse bullet is really incredible. And that was one of the sequences that really rewards a rewatch with graph paper because you have to play it back several times and watch it with attention to how it's going from the subjective time of Satyr and Kat protagonist. But it all clicks together really quick. Holds that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, I have a question about that. So as I was trying to rewatch and rewatch it and. And dig into analysis of it. What's.

[Mallory Rubin]

What.

[Joanna Robinson]

What is hard for me to understand about a. A temporal pincer movement is that you have, you know, in Sator's case, he has Volkov or, you know, someone telling him everything that happens on the road so that he can go and inverse and sort of be involved in it. So it's like, this is what you did. This is what you already did. So this is what you need to do do. It always happened so. Or with the temporal pincer movement of Team Blue and Team Red in. In the stalls sort of fight at the end, Team Blue is like, hey, this is what happened to team Red. But like, how closely do you need to follow? Like, do you just get a sort of like, hey, you showed up driving this particular car backwards on the road and is it just sort of like you as a person are like, okay, well, whatever I would do in that moment is what I'm going to do. Or is. Are his men like. And then he threw you the orange case, but you glanced to the right and saw it was happening in the s. You know, like how detailed and then how prescriptive is. Is the. Are the instructions on a temporal pincer movement. That's where my brain starts to boil. Especially if you go to the car chase once. Once Satr understands where. Where the MacGuffin is. Which is. It's in the silver Saab. Yeah, he still play acts the rest of the car chase already knowing where the piece is, so he has to, like, pretend with the rest of the car chase so that the protagonist doesn't know that he knows where the piece is already.

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you know what I.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you know what I mean, Rebecca?

[Mallory Rubin]

Do you see what I'm saying there?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, I mean, I do see. It's hard. We were also wondering, like, at the end there, just, like, standing there in the shipping container explaining how the inversion is going to work and how they're going to go back in time to save Kat, which means, like, while the temporal pincer movement is happening, they're just sitting there. Like, they could have run out and grabbed the algorithm piece at any time. So I think that's the job that doesn't really hold up either.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah. Or go to the, like, the. It really. It hurts my brain and it makes me feel dumb because I'm like, why not just do another other pass like that? I mean, that's what the protagonist does, allegedly, in the. In the car chases. He does the SOB is his other pass to try to, like, fix things. And then he realizes I just actually. I was always there and I just actually made it worse because now he knows exactly where the pieces is in the back of the sub, which is parked back there. And you know, and Sator does another pass through to grab it from the sub, but I'm like, what's to stop us from just weaving another pass? Why did we stop there? Why didn't we weave another pass? Is it because we. We didn't and so we can't now. And that's. That's the other thing. Sorry.

[Mallory Rubin]

Sorry, guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, like, that's the other thing about going through the turnstile. An interesting explanation of the turnstile is you always have to check to see that you can't are coming out the other side, you know, so that you can know that you did so you don't get stuck there. That boils my brain a bit, honestly.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because you already did it, so you have to. To do it. What if, you know, I have no choice because I did it, so I have to do it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, it's interesting too, to consider. Would that be an excuse to do nothing? Obviously not an excuse to do nothing, but would the level of detail shared, because that part of what's interesting about that sequence that you're choosing, Rebecca, is that there's. The setup for that is like, don't paper it we can't let them know. And then it's very satisfying. The idea, idea that like everything you do creates a mark and then that mark is something that people can understand and use and it opens I think the, the floor for your question of like well, what level? And then the, the yes, they send a team and they learn from that team, et cetera. I think it's interesting to consider. We don't get the answer for this but like do we we to consider whether the two sides would approach that differently. Like whether maybe a character like Sator would seek to prescribe movement and rob the people in his team of choice. Because for him it is about an end goal. Whereas, like we see Neil not tell the protagonist things even after he has a certain moment of like he knows who the protagonist is the whole time as we've already, as we've covered. But like in the freeport sequence, the fight, which is my pick, he pulls

[Joanna Robinson]

the helmet off, he sees and he's like, oh.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then he doesn't tell him anything as the protagonist calls him out and he's like, you like weren't going to like mention that before we went and like did that all again, you know, and it's like, well, no, because you've got to do the. That you've got to do. Right? And I have to do the. That I have to do. So I like, like that could be kind of a thematically rich thing actually if the sides pursued it differently. Ultimately, I am attempting to rationalize something that I don't think the film answers. I think it's a pretty. I think it's fair question. Yeah, I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

My, my sick. A set piece is the same as Rebecca's. Well, one of Rebecca's, which is the exploding bottom of like the fact that Wheeler and Ives, Fiona Dorif and Aaron Taylor Johnson, part of the red team, blue team gambit, part of this pincer movement is to create such a spectacle that everyone will be distracted. And so agreeing to both blow up the building at the bottom and at the top and the way in which they. The filmmakers made several different models of this building and blew it up the bottom and blew it up at the top and then composited together, then made a bigger version of it so that people could run past it and it all looks, you know, like Inception. The most sort of like Escher esque mind bending puzzle. That's definitely my favorite sort of visual. You know, I mean the car chase is incredible. And the fact, you know, to your point about the, the Making up of, you know, all of the stunt driving that they did to accomplish that, to make it look like something is defying physics and, you know, like, even small details like the way the trash sort of like, reverse comes out of the wheels of the car. But, you know, because they told you that the car is driving, reversing. So they had to, like, sort of either CGI add or, like, pull trash out of it to make, you know, like, it's quite intricate. It rewards as many watches as Rebecca and her husband and all of their friends have done from their couches. And it's astounding.

[Mallory Rubin]

The reason I am going with the Freeport fight.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Less for me about the plane crash part of it, though, obviously, that when we go back and do it again, the way that that creates the opportunity to enter and stuff is a satisfying aspect of the story stitching together that

[Joanna Robinson]

the ambulance is always there.

[Mallory Rubin]

Exactly. The ambulance is always. You could see in one of the shots that they're, like, you know, as they're exiting, they're running in and stuff like. That's very fun in terms of just the craft of the movie and the commitment to the way the movie was gonna be made. This is like Pantheon Nolan stuff. I think they. I believe that he has said that there is only, if you map it, one shot that they reused when you rewatch the fight, the second in time. Because, like, they wanted to so authentically film it from each perspective. That, like, crab walk. Like, well, that guy did that.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's why I have the character move that way. This is in my stunt because, like, you know, which not to get ahead. But I will just say for that reason, because watching them choreograph this fight and watching them figure out how to, like, flip themselves backwards and all this sort of stuff like that, to make it so they're not reversing the footage. Right. Is incredible.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. It's like we're going to train and study and ask not only of the stunt performers, but the main cast to learn how to do this and to move this way. It was interesting to hear John David Washington and then the cast talk about. Oh, well, normally when I'm making a movie, I'm not sitting down and watching my own tape. But I had to understand. It's just kind of fascinating and really audacious, I think. And, you know, I like. It has a very compelling setup when we were walking in the split room and, like, the bullets and the glass in a way, that's actually a little bit of the I opposite to me,

[Joanna Robinson]

I Still don't understand. I. I still don't understand reverse bullets. I try all the time, and sometimes

[Mallory Rubin]

my brain pick it up. You have to have dropped it. So turn your hand like you've dropped it. But, like, they walk into that room, they see the bullet holes. It's like, shit is about to go down. I love that. It makes my heart race in a great, fun way. During the car chase sequence, I see. I see the cracked side mirror, and I'm, like, annoyed that the characters don't, you know? So it has a little bit of the opposite effect for me. But I think there's just something in that hallway fight that's like. It's just kind of, like, rapturously bel to me and its choreography. So I. I love that none of us picked the Opera House heist, which is interesting.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, it looks very cool.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Anything opera is so confusing. I.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes, Rebecca.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I'm like, I do not understand what was happening in the Opera House. Yes. I still don't really understand what that, like, random guy that they were rescuing, like, what his deal was. But he had. I tried so many times, but he had the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Unfortunately, it is the opening to the movie, you know, So I would. I would posit that that's not ideal. It just does kind of put you in almost like a defense. I'll speak for myself. Almost a defensive position as a viewer, where you're like, oh, my God, like, is this gonna be that hard?

[Joanna Robinson]

It looks incredibly cool, like, the way that everyone's passed out, like, all of that, you know, it almost looks like time has stopped.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes. The first time you see the plastic start to move where there's a hole, and then we see the string for the first time. It's got some fun stuff in it, but. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right. Swear to me, this movie is rated PG13, which means it could have exactly one F bomb. Where would you put it, Rebecca?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think when Kat shoots Satyr and he's springing at her, I think he's already trying to say fuck. He's like, yeah. So I think that's where I'd put the caption. Also, a bunch of times when Neil is explaining things, the protagonist just makes a face like, what the F? So I think one of those verbalized would be nice.

[Mallory Rubin]

I love. I love both those. Sator does say it's true fucking nature when he's talking about the tiger. So I think that, like, as he's pouncing, Pick is a fantastic one. I'm also going with Satyr. Let's just Spend a moment talking about the fact that this is what this is a scene in this movie. As the kids say, bracket complimentary. Okay, we're going to take you there. I'm not going to attempt the accent because I'm not as brave as you. We're going to take you there, cut your throat. Not across, in the middle like a hole. Then we take your balls and we stuff them in the cut block the windpipe. This. We could have picked this for Funniest Moment. The protagonist replies, complex, which is genuinely hysterical. It's very gratifying to watch a man you don't like try to pull his own balls out of his throat before he chokes. Here's the edit. We're gonna take you there, cut your fucking throat. Not across in the fucking middle like a fucking hole. Then we take your fucking balls and we stuff them in the cut. Block the fucking windpipe. Complex. It's very gratifying to watch a man you don't like try to pull his own balls out of his own throat before he chokes. It just would have been, why not?

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that. Yeah, great stuff. Also in that scene when he says, how would you like to die Old was the runner up I had for funniest moment. I thought that was really good.

[Mallory Rubin]

Real Tyrion Lannister vibes there.

[Joanna Robinson]

To circ to Rebecca's funniest moment, My pick is I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago or something like that. Right before he ruined cheese graters for me forever.

[Mallory Rubin]

All right, you really feel it?

[Joanna Robinson]

Next category was basically created for this movie. Yeah, he doesn't speak English. If he does, it's with an accent thicker than sauerkraut sauce, which is from Oppenheimer, actually. Most baffling accent. This is where we get to talk about Kenneth Branagh. Unless someone has a different option. My. I will say that when my friends and I went to go see this at the drive in, we then spent the rest of our lives occasionally saying to each other, you know what I admire about the tiger? Which is just one of my favorite line deliveries of all time. Rebecca, want to talk about Branagh and his tremendous accent in this movie?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

No. We quote SATA a lot too, but it's about the last French fry. I can't have it. No one. I'm not bothered by the accent at all. Like, maybe I have a bad ear for accents, but I like that it's like so ham fisted and cheesy and like, it's just really classic Bond. And I always like watching movies where the Actors are clearly having a great time, and Candace just seems like he's having a lot of fun, so I'm all for it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have come around on Branagh in this movie. I hated it at first, and now I'm sort of, like, with it where you. Mallory.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'll save that answer to that for another category.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

But I also do kind of, like the accent choice because it is so batshit bonkers that it weirdly, like, works for me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

But it's definitely the pick.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know what I admire? But. All right. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Best use of a Nolan verse regular. Rebecca, we didn't define this for you, but we're. We're defining this as anyone who's been in two Nolan movies or more.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

There aren't a ton of options in this movie, but there is more than one. So what do you have here?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Rebecca always loved Michael Caine, but something I only learned on this rewatch is that the maitre d at the restaurant when the protagonist goes to see Michael Caine is the. I think the main character of Following.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's right. Which we just watched.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

So it's just nice to see him come back.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was. I agree.

[Mallory Rubin]

That was really fun, especially because we, like, had just talked about that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Mallory Rubin]

Movie and been thinking about that as, like, the Nolan skeleton key. So. Yeah, that's a great one. And Martin Donovan also brought back from Insomnia, like, the kind of, like, figures of Nolan yesteryear. Coming into this movie is fun and interesting because actually, we haven't talked about this, but, like, this is kind of like a reset moment for his cast. You know, he. I mean, obviously we'll go back to, like, Cillian Murphy will win an Oscar for Oppenheimer. It's not like he's done with all of his faves, but, you know, there's. This is a newer group of performers who he's working with here in the central roles in a way that I think should be allowed in the spirit of the exercise for a Christopher Nolan movie. I'm going out of order, and I am picking Robert Pattinson, even though at this point he had only been in one. But he will.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've done the same thing with a different actor.

[Mallory Rubin]

He will be back. So he's already been cast. Eligible. Not only cast, but starring in these trailers, generating meme after meme.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're so meme crazed for Odyssey. It's so funny to me. I just.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's like crack to me. I love it.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is where I want to talk about Himesh Patel, who I absolutely love, who I love and who is going to be in the Odyssey. So he counts, and he shows up as Mir here, who is part of the plane crash, and then also shows up to drive the boat for Kat at the end of the movie. We are huge Station 11 fans. We love him so much. I think he's so fun and funny in this movie. The way that he calls the guy over to sort of like, check on the vegan meals, and he's just sort of like, I don't know, just like real casual chloroforming of. Of this guy. I just. I think he's very dashing and. And perfect for a spy mission. And, you know, thinking a lot about Inception when you. When you watch John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Himesh Patel sort of like standing in a triangle and the cameras circling around them as they're sort of talking about their plan, that's very like, let's put a team together. Inception, to me and Himesh Patel would, like, have folded in so well to an Inception. And I'm just, like, excited to see what more Nolan wants to do. Like, I would love for him to be like Cillian Murphy, like Matt Damon, one of those guys he uses in the background. In the background and background until he crafts a whole movie for them. But Hemesh Patel deserves it, so I would love to see that. That's my choice. Great one. All right.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Who is he cast as in the Odyssey?

[Joanna Robinson]

So Hamesh Patel is playing, I believe you pronounce it Eurylochas, who is sort of. Who undermines Odysseus a bunch on the mission, then I think is like the ringleader of the Cersei up is what I believe is his role. Does that sound right to you, Rebecca?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Okay. Fun. Yeah, that'll be really fun.

[Joanna Robinson]

So you, like, in the trailer, you see him sort of in a lot of the battle flashback stuff, but then I'm curious to see sort of like, you know, what. What role exactly he's going to play because, like, how much. I'm excited to talk to you about the Odyssey, but, like, how much of the Odyssey is. Is. Are we going to hit. How many of the destinations are we going to hit on the journey? We surely don't have time for them all. All right. Why do we fall, sir? So that we can pick ourselves back up. Best stun. Already said mine, Rebecca. What is yours?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I originally picked that building being blown up in rivers, but also this time I was thinking a lot about Cat's dive. During that whole final confrontation with Sator on the yacht, I just kept thinking, the floor must be so slippery. I really hope she doesn't slip. And when she's dragging him off the boat, I'm like, that's a lot of momentum. I hope she doesn't slip with him. So I think Div. From that height and not hitting anything on the boat and, like, the sheer grace with which it's got to be a stunt woman. I don't know if Elizabeth Deputy could die like that, but I thought it was just such a gorgeous, clean line of motion.

[Mallory Rubin]

That's a great pick. That would be sick if DeBecky was like, I did that. And that was my foot that reached across the entire length of the car to touch the steering wheel. Because I look, I look at me. I can do it all. That'd be amazing.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love how tall she is. It's very important to me. She rules Mallory.

[Mallory Rubin]

Oh, boy. So we've.

[Joanna Robinson]

I.

[Mallory Rubin]

As is often the case, we hit a lot of stunt contenders in the set piece category. What haven't we talked about? Cuz, like, my pick was going to be the backwards car flip in the. The Tallen car chase, the. The Saab, but we've talked about that stretch enough. I. We also talked about the cheese grater, which I do think there's something about that kitchen fight that's just, like, it. It's just dudes punching each other. Like, it's a very grounded fight, but it is very useful and established how capable the protagonist is gonna be throughout the rest of the film. Okay, you know what? I'll go. I'm gonna go with the bungee jump, the entrance to Sing Tower, because I think the. This is, like, a small but clever way to really show us how all in Nolan is on the bit, right? Like, the idea that even that before we jump down, we're gonna jump up. This isn't actually a moment where we're moving backwards or our characters are inverted, but we're playing with that. Even.

[Joanna Robinson]

Even still, my favorite part of that. Protagonist jumps off and you just see Neil, like, as he's, like, getting ready to jump. Neil just, like, passes him in the background. Blurry. It's really good, the bunching up.

[Mallory Rubin]

Very cool.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very cool. All right. Rebecca loves the dead wives. You're waiting on a train. A train that will take you far away. Best dead wife slash woman moment.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I loved the entire Elizabeth debagy performance. I really love my Cat Kills Satyr because, uh, it's not a dead wife moment. Or even a mo woman moment. It's like a being truly terrible at your job and not following instructions moment. And it didn't click for me until this last time we watched it. And Bennett pointed out, like they told her over and over again, you're there as the backstop. Your whole job is to keep him from killing himself. And she's like, I'm just gonna shoot it.

[Mallory Rubin]

So it would have been better if

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

she wasn't there there at all. And it like it just contributes absolutely nothing to the plan. But she's really there for the emotional vindication of getting to stand up to him one more time. And, and I find like, like every little emotion that passes through her face in that scene. I thought that was incredible acting.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do love the, the timey wimey complexity of like they're, they're both from the future pretending to be from the past.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

This key date, the 14 that, that he thinks she's already dead. And so he is like cherishing in a twisted fuck up way this like final moment with this woman that he has already killed. And then she's like, you're about to die, motherfucker. And I will. And her whole performance, as you say, like pretending to be enamored or the way she ducks his gaze and stuff like that. I will say our listener Leah wrote in, in in praise of this performance to say Tenant allows Elizabeth Vicki to be tall. She drove that car with her foot.

[Mallory Rubin]

There you go.

[Joanna Robinson]

Plus the way Kat realizes that she was the anonymous woman she's been jealous of was not her husband's mistress and actually her after killing her husband. Delightful. It's one of the better arcs. Only arcs Nolan has given a female character, which I love. Rebecca, take a moment to talk to us about why you love the dead wives of Christopher Nolan.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I mean, I just don't think of them as inconveniently fridged. I think Nolan is a man who clearly loves his wife and children. You can tell in how he's written all of his films, he thinks that the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody is losing your wife and children. So naturally all of his protagonists are like, I gotta get back to my kids and I miss my wife a lot. And like, does it recur with like startling frequency? Yeah, I think that's funny. But I like it's, I think it's a really easy shortcut to creating a sympathetic protagonist. And I think it like it rings true. Like that would absolutely devastate you. I also like, Mal is an amazing character in Inception. And I really have, like, so little patience for the dead wife criticism of that film, especially because he gets, like, Don Cobb gets that whole speech at the end about how she's not his wife. She just Shade. She can never capture Mal in all her complexity and beauty. So I think. I think all of his films are smarter and more sincere about the missing wife than the memes make them out to be.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it's. I don't mind the fact that we examine it at every turn. I think it is quite funny. I think, especially, like, in a larger cultural context when we still struggle to center films on women. Like the fact that, you know, these women die over and over and over again, I think is worth remarking on. But I do think, you know, some of our listeners have pushed back on this, and I. I do think it's a valid point to say, apparently for Christopher Nolan, the worst fate that you could encounter is to lose your wife. I do think that that is a compelling argument. I still think it's hilarious, and not always in a way that I love that he keeps doing this. Mallory, what's your pick here?

[Mallory Rubin]

I also think that the cat character is great and very welcome. And I think the Debicki performance is fantastic. I mean, she's always great, no surprise, but she's dynamite in this movie. I love the idea that we have kind of subbed the dead wife for the hostage wife. You know, there's still. There's. There's something there still happening. But it works quite well because it actually allows her to. You know, I. You talked beautifully about the dive, Rebecca. And like, I love. We've. We've hit it a couple times. Like, I just love, you know, and we know, like, I feel like, yeah, on the first watch, we know that that's going to be revealed to be her, but it doesn't. It doesn't make it any less impactful because it's not really, truly about the plot reveal. It's about her coming to understand. Understand that she did this thing and now can do things, right? So, like, the idea that you feel completely trapped in your own life and then. And this is quite fitting in the larger conversation we're having about free will, right? And agency. It's like satyr is gonna die, right? This is established what has. What's. What has happened has happened. But also, like, he is seeking that outcome, right? That's like a great moment. She's like, no, you've. You've missed it. Like, this is what he wants, right? He says about her, if I can't, you know, have. No one can. And about the world. If I can't have it, nobody can. And so she is not at any point deluding herself into thinking she is ending something that he was not already ending. But it's about doing it on her terms, right? She says to him, it's very satisfying. Like, I'm not going to let you think that you took us with you. And so that is, I think, a good, good encapsulation of how the movie can say the sequence of events is said. The bomb that goes off went off and goes off. The death occurs, the dive occurs. But we have a different understanding, as does the person who is living through it now, in this moment, this contemporary moment, for what drove that outcome, what is truly responsible for leading us to that place, which is really, really great. And he didn't just vanish.

[Joanna Robinson]

He got dragged through the water on his sunscreen, soaked like a piece of driftwood tied to the back of a boat, incred.

[Mallory Rubin]

And, like, I. I just. I don't know. She has a lot of really good, powerful lines. Like, I like when she says to the protagonist very early in their interaction. You mean blackmail? Like, don't be afraid of the word. You know, she's just a badass. She's a cool character.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree.

[Mallory Rubin]

I'm the vengeful bitch you scattered on the outside.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I will say, rewatching that scene over and over again, which I did because I liked watching her shoot him, she struggles slightly with getting that butt open to, like, have her cool moment, which. Which is not a critique. I'm just saying, like, you know, Cat is in her mind. She's like, I've got the gun, and I'm gonna. I've got this great line, and then I'm gonna, like, whip my shirt open and show him the scar. And she's, like, struggling with her button a little bit. I just. I really like it. I think it's very human. It's very good. All right, I want to make sure we can get to the Odyssey conversation that we want to have with you, so I am going to encourage us to slightly zoom through the rest of these. He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one we need. It needs right now. Who was regrettably miscast and who would you replace them with? My scorching hot take is. I do think John David Washington is. You calling him like a. I think you call him, like, a column of swag. I think that's very accurate. I think, for something this logically complex, when you think about something like Interstellar. Matthew McConaughey's, like, extremely emotional performance is something that, like, really drives us through. And so, like, Pattinson is showing up, giving us a lot of emotion. John David Washington is giving us a lot of cool. And I would, I would like someone who is just a bit more raw throughout this, so I could, at least, as Barbara encourages us, don't try to understand it, just feel it. Like, I would like to feel it a little bit more throughout. So that's. That's kind of my hot take on this movie. Rebecca, what's your. What's your answer here?

[Mallory Rubin]

Wow.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I have the opposite take on John David Washington. Like, I really like his restraint. I like that he. He's, like, so well trained that he doesn't betray motion. And that makes the moments where, like, his eyes get red when he's saying goodbye to Neil. Like, I feel like that makes those emotions hit even harder. But my silly recast was I was going to recast Wheeler because I think Aaron Taylor Johnson is Ives. Like, he's, like, chewing up every line with such verve, like, need to know and you don't. And I was like, oh, it'd be cool if, like, Wheeler was also, like, a surprise cameo of somebody I really like. But then I recently became a Pitt fan and I found out that it's the case. And now I'm like, wheeler is perfect.

[Mallory Rubin]

No Aviator Nation zip up hoodies on Wheeler during the.

[Joanna Robinson]

You don't know what's under. It's entirely, entirely impossible.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah. I think for me, it's the. I think that John David Washington is, as we've talked about, very funny, very sexy, suave. All of my notes on the protagonist are about how the character is written. I think, like, this, it's just. And as we talked about kind of

[Joanna Robinson]

intentionally, I've seen John David Washington give far more sort of emotionally raw performances. So I know he's capable of it.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I love. You mentioned Black Klansman as the what. What. What Nolan Son wanted. Knew he wanted to cast him. Really wrecked my head canon. I loved the idea that Christopher Nolan was the only other person on Earth who had finished all of Baller's show that I watched every second of. John David Washington is great in. But I, I actually, yeah, I, I. And his performance is. Every time I watch it, I'm. Because of those little moments. Like, you know, the, there's the. You must not, like, you really must not like. To the look of me, you're like, well, then he's gonna want to meet Me, he does. I think he's conveying quite a bit, actually, in little moments. I like the performance. My, this, my hot take is Branagh. I, I, who I love and think is like a titan and is great. But here's here, let me make the, make the pitch. Sator is, and Nolan himself will say this, right, he's not like a, a villain who has a point. He's not supposed to be empathetic in any respect. He is pure, selfish evil. He is the worst possible endpoint of the great man complex, right. That Nolan likes to study. I personally think that Kenneth Branagh is just a touch too charming to be like someone I am supposed to be incapable of being interested in spending time with at all. I need someone just like more. And maybe the accent is helping to, to get us there a bit. I need like a touch more cartoon evil. Like, I can't question at all for a second if I'm supposed to feel that way about that guy. But Bran is like, you know, so

[Joanna Robinson]

do you have a candidate? No, no, Just not Brian.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Okay.

[Mallory Rubin]

No, but that's my take. I don't really have any other candidates. Was more, was more why I landed on Branagh because I think actually it's like a quite well cast movie and it is just fun to see like a different, a different cast in a Nolan movie because it's fun that he returns to so many favorites. But I found it, like, quite refreshing to have so many new people in his primary cast. So I didn't really have a candidate other than Branagh. I don't really feel strongly about the Branagh take, though.

[Joanna Robinson]

You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled. Most satisfying twists. There are a lot of twists and turns in this. Rebecca, what is your answer here?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, so I like the reveal that he's known Neil for a long time as part of the bigger reveal that this whole movie has been a temporal pincer movement.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love it.

[Mallory Rubin]

I agree. That's a great one. Though I do think it would be pretty funny if on this podcast we said our favorite twist was that the wife did not in fact die. Because it is a twist. It is a twist.

[Joanna Robinson]

One of our listeners is like, have you considered that he hasn't killed a wife in a while? That, like, she doesn't die? I'm like, yeah, the wife doesn't die in Oppenheimer, but a lady dies in Oppenheimer.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well, a lady. Priya is shot in the back of the head.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, a lady does in this movie.

[Mallory Rubin]

We Are not all unscathed. No, I.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

So much more than just the wife.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's true. It's true. Yeah. My.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

My.

[Mallory Rubin]

My pick is just. Yeah. Neil having been at the center of. Of Tenet, you know, I'm calling in the cowboy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wait, what?

[Mallory Rubin]

You know, all of that and just the fact that Neil and the protagonists have known each other for some time, I guess that within that, like, I do think the reveal that the protagonist, like, founded Tenet is a pretty. That's a pretty big one. I don't know if it. It's not as it doesn't have a grip on my heart the way that the Neil antagonist thing does.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it's a Neil reveal for sure. All right. It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. Nolan not known for his sexual content, but let's go ahead and try to excavate the horniest moment of this film. Rebecca, what do you have?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

All I could think about is how deeply unsexy the supposedly sexy moments of the film are. Like, I actually burst out laughing at the scene on the yacht when Cat's, like, trying to seduce Satyr and make him feel like he loves him again. And he literally, literally goes, a moment, please, madam. Like, he is uninterested in his own wife, and she is so clearly uninterested in him. And it's just absurd watching these two people, like, rub sunscreen on each other. Like, she's like, oh, it'll be fun. He's like, please, please, no.

[Mallory Rubin]

Incredible. I have a kind of related pick. It also involves their marriage after the car flip. Inverted Seder says to inverted protagonist. You did get my pulse above 130. No one's done that before.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not even my wife.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Really tough.

[Mallory Rubin]

Tough, tough, tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say we got some emails from people. I am such a fervent, you know, believer in the Max is Neil theory that. That I have not had room for this interpretation of Tenet. But we got some emails from listeners who interpret Neil saying to the protagonist, we get up to some stuff as being a bit spicier than I'm the grown up version of this kid. But, like, let's see, he's not Max.

[Mallory Rubin]

I did not read that.

[Joanna Robinson]

He just looks like Robert Pattinson. And he's like, I know your Diet Coke order. I know everything about you. We get up to some stuff.

[Mallory Rubin]

Why not?

[Joanna Robinson]

I would just offer that out there. But again, I'm a believer in the Max's Neil theory. Okay, you think darkness is your ally, but you Merely adopted the dog. I was born in it.

[Mallory Rubin]

In the Bane voice. Go full Bane, God damn it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Most devastating moment. This is also Neil for me. Rebecca, what is. What is your answer here?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Also, Neil, definitely, when he turns around and you see the charm on his backpack, I think there's something, like, really sweetly tragic and nostalgic about Robert Pattinson's performance during the whole movie, because I see him wearing the expression that Michael Scott wears on his last day in the office when he knows it's his last day, but nobody else does. So he's just, like, being so tender to everybody. So in that scene where he's getting the protagonist a Coke and he's like, I prefer soda water. And he's like, no, you don't. He knows his story ends here. He must know. He must know. He spent his whole life building to it. And if we think he's Max and the protagonist would have raised him, we also know that he's grown up knowing he was going to die. So there's this knowing fondness and all the things he can't say that I think make that performance very devastating.

[Joanna Robinson]

He also, if he is Max, which, again, I believe in, he would have had to spend so much of his life inverted to get all the way back to the point of being Robert Pattinson's age. At this point, he would have spent decades inverted. And so, you know, thinking about that, about, like, how much of his life he has spent, you know, dedicated to the cause of tenet. And then, yeah, I find that Diet Coke moment, it's great. So tender.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's great. And also, like, what that would mean for Neil to know that this is the moment that the protagonist is meeting him for the first time. And he has.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I.

[Mallory Rubin]

There's something kind of subtle in that scene where he's like, you know, would you kill a woman? Would you kill a child? It's almost like he's testing to confirm that this is, like, the first interaction for the other person. I. I really. I really like that. And I agree. That's one of the more. That is one of the more satisfying on the, like, human, emotional level aspects of rewatching. It is like, all those little looks

[Joanna Robinson]

in the moments where, again, like, thinking about Doc, the Doctor in River Song, inside of Doctor who, when they. When he meets her for the first time and she is devoted to that, he doesn't recognize her. And so I kind of lay that onto Neil where it's just sort of like whether or not he knows this is the first time they're Meeting or not. But there's just that sort of like, you don't know me.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm a stranger to you. You know? And you're never gonna. If this is my last mission, my last day, you're never gonna know me. You know, we're only getting less and less of each other and not more and more of each other as our relationship goes.

[Mallory Rubin]

Well. And the idea, too, I mean, that makes it even more real rich that in a story about being able to invert yourself and move backwards through time and like, that the moments you share with other people are still finite. Right. Is, like, really important because it adds a sense of. We talk about the other side of this. That stakes don't only come in the form of death, but, like, the fact that someone, at any moment, might be out of your life. And part of what makes that end, exchange so good between them is, like, they're both confronting something. You know, the protagonist has seen the dead body. He has seen the string on the backpack. So when Neil turns, he's like, oh, my goodness. When Neil is going back in there and saying, he. Ives, could anyone else have gotten that door unlocked as quickly? No, it's gotta be me. Well, the protagonist has to make that run that calculus of, like, I know what the outcome is gonna be. Do I tell him? Do I say something?

[Joanna Robinson]

And then Neil is like, neil knows in that moment. And then.

[Mallory Rubin]

And then he realizes that Neil knows. And Neil kind of gives him that gift of absolving himself of the guilt. Because that's a bond. The entire ball game. Like, every moment is gonna be that kind of calculus and assessment as they go through time. So the fact that Neil has, like, the. You know, it's a very somber scene. But, like, you've known me for years. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. Like, he knows definitively that it's over, but he's giving him the gift of saying, like, but for me, it's just the beginning. Yeah, for you, it's just the beginning. We get up to some stuff. It's just great.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

It's great.

[Joanna Robinson]

Last question before we get to talk to Rebecca about the Odyssey, which I'm so excited about. Some men just wanna watch. Vern, what is the most Nolan thing about this movie? Rebecca.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Starting a conversation in one place and continuing it in a totally different location as if it's one conversation for sure.

[Mallory Rubin]

Ooh, that's a good pick. I like that. I mean, my answer is all of it. It's, like, the most Nolan movie. It's just like Nolan Square.

[Joanna Robinson]

I just wrote time with like 10 eyes in it.

[Mallory Rubin]

All of it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, this is the moment I've been waiting for. We are now going to talk to Rebecca about the audience Odyssey. But this is a no hold, no holds barred. All spoilers are welcome discussion of the Odyssey. So if you don't want to know about this very ancient text that most of us studied in school, but if you didn't and you don't want to know, you can Peace out and we'll see you soon. This brings us into the Odyssey. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us. What aspect of Nolan's the upcoming the Odyssey are you thinking about such most hyped for this month. Usually this is just a one answer, but we're going to do a little sub combo here because we've got a master story to teller here to talk to us about the Odyssey. But I will just say I watched this Colbert interview that Nolan did when he debuted the trailer on Colbert's show and he was talking about how the Odyssey is like the original non linear story that they all come from. The Odyssey, the Odyssey is told non linear linearly. And so like thinking about that the song of Odysseus, he wants to start it in Ithaca with the song of Odysseus and then sort of like travel all around through time via that. The idea of faith and divinity inside of the Odyssey and thinking about faith as it pertains to this movie got me really excited. But Rebecca, why has the tale of Odysseus and Dirt as one of like the stories of our world?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think two reasons, and they're both very much wrapped up in reasons why I like Tenet as well. And first, it's a story about fate and whether you can be a master of your own future. One of the essential questions in Greek epics, Greek tragedies, is how much your decisions matter when sort of the Olympians have chosen what's going to happen. Odysseus doesn't get home initially because he's angered Zeus and Poseidon and he only finally returns and beats the suitors because Athena has intervened and is like it's kind of time to let Odysseus go. So from one perspective, perspective, Odysseus the human and his choices don't matter at all. He's just this puppet playing out a drama for the entertainment of the gods. He's just one thread and this tapestry of time. But from his perspective, he still has to outsmart the Cyclops. He still has to sail between Scylla and Perybdis. And I think Nolan is very attuned to that because one of the taglines that they've been using for the film is defy the gods. So I am very excited to see how he's navigating that tension between destiny and. And autonomy. And while we're on, like, the Greek tragedies topic, my deep cut here is that Tenet can be read as a reverse Oedipus Rex because in Oedipus, the characters are trying to escape their fates and unwittingly bring it about, even when what's happened, happened and it's written. And in Tenet, the characters sort of know their fates have been decided. The fact that they're there means that they must have won in the future, but they still have to bring it about, and they still have to play their part. And also, there's that nuclear family goofiness involved. So I think, yeah, fate and destiny, whether it's because of the bootstrap of the future or whether because of the gods intervening, I think that's like an endless question that people will always be writing stories about. But the second reason why it's just so compelling on a universal God level is. And also the reason why the Odyssey is a very natural fit for Nolan's artistic direction is that it's a story about defending house and home. And it's not just a story about a man who wants to give back to his wife and kids. It's about a young man, a son becoming a man in the absence of his father, and a wife missing her husband, who has to stay true against an onslaught of suitors. So all three of them have to fight in their different ways for the story to have a happy ending and bring the family back together. And again, no one's obsessed with that nuclear family and reuniting everybody. And in the Odyssey, finally, you have a chance for all of them to be alive and reunite.

[Mallory Rubin]

God, bring on July 17th. Let's go. What do you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rebecca, what do you think people get wrong about the Odyssey?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think there's a lot that we could say just based on the memes swirling around.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

But I think just like a technical thing that I'm excited to see how Nolan approaches is the timeline aspect and also where the action really is. Because people. I think people who haven't read the Odyssey are like, oh, it's all about the journey. It's about Odysseus beating all these monsters to get home. But that's not the focus of the poem. Just on the pure, like, percentages level. The Odyssey doesn't even start with Odysseus. It starts with Telemachus and Penelope at home, sort of dealing with all these horrible suitors who are eating all their livestock and threatening them. And the first four books are about Telemachus setting out from Ithaca to Sparta to seek news of its dad. And then we don't even get to Odysseus until book five, when he's been stuck for years on Calypso's island. And then, even then, most of the story of the Odyssey has already happened. And we get told about the Cyclops and Circe and Scylla and Charybdis as a flashback told to Alcinous, who's the father of Nausicaa, who Odysseus is sheltering with until he. He moves on. And then pretty quickly after he's told that flashback, he. He sets SA for Ithaca and then he gets home. And so that journey part, that's the flashback, is only books 5 through 13, which only gets you halfway through the epic. And the majority of the poem is about Odysseus skulking around back home in Ithaca in disguise, like, spying on the suitors and making plans with Telemachus and seeing if anybody else recognizes him. So I think what's really interesting thematically about the Odyssey is not the journey, it's about what happens to you when you finally get home, how much you've changed, whether anybody recognizes you, whether you're welcomed. And I think it's telling that the main threat that is foreshadowed over and over again is not any of the monsters on the journey. It's not any of these mythical beasts, but it's the warnings about what happened to Agamemnon, because the wife character, Penelope, is contrasted with Helen of Troy, the wife of Menelaus, and Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. Agamemnon gets home first. He and Clytemnestra are already on bad terms because he sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia at Aulia so that his men could sail. So she's, like, at home stewing at him. And she takes a lover, Aegis. So he gets Agynet, Magnon gets home from Troy finally, and Aegisthus is like, oh, welcome, dude, let's throw a banquet for you. And then during this banquet, he, like, slaughters him and all of his men, red wedding style. And then finally Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son Orestes gets revenge for his father. So that's the cautionary tale of exactly what could happen to Odysseus when he gets home if his wife and his son are not true. And I think that's gonna be the beating heart of the movie and not the monsters along the way.

[Joanna Robinson]

What do you make of the news that we just got that Lupita Nyong' o is playing both Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy? She's, like, doing a dual role. What do you think is interesting about that?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Oh, I had no idea. That's really cool. Yeah. I think the standard interpretation of both of these women is that they're the foils of Penelope. Penelope is true. She wards up the suitors. She believes her husband will come back. And I think both Helen and Clyde Nestor are the examples of the bad wives who strayed. Although I will say the Helen of Troy cameo in the Odyssey is very funny to me because she doesn't get that many lines. So Telemachus goes to the court of Menelaus and Helen, and they shelter him and give him some news of his dad. And Helen comes down and she's just like, oh, yeah. Like, that was so crazy how the gods tricked me. And I went with Paris and I really didn't want to, but I'm home now and everything's okay. Incredible.

[Joanna Robinson]

So Betty Sassy is playing Agamemnon and

[Mallory Rubin]

Don Bernthal with quite a helmet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Dawn Bernthal is playing Menelaus. So that is all very Bernthal.

[Mallory Rubin]

Hive Rise. Always.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Anything you've already sort of, like, pushed back on on the dead wife trope. But you sent us an email a little while ago letting us know that you got into a fight at a pub about sort of Chris Nolan, Dead Wives and the Odyssey. And I've never been more jealous of a conversation in my life. Like, can we go find a pub and have an argument about Nolan and Dead Wives and the Odyssey? So, Rebecca, What? Like, what are you hearing? What's the word on the street about the Odyssey that you're like, hey, man, that's not what we're going to see. What do you think?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

It was a friendly argument, but I was shouting across the table at Hub because I think there's somebody who wanted to perform the classic Nolan Hayter line, which I think is just an easy social identity to adopt if you're just lightly dipping your toes in the discursive waters. And he was like, oh, Nolan hates women. And his Odyssey is just going to have Circe and Calypso and Athena slinking around and being in love with him and being obsessed with him and dying for him. And I was like, first of all, that's not what Nolan women do because they're typically more busy being dead. They're also typically not sex objects. Like, desire for women is rarely ever driving the plot in a Nolan film. Even in Tenet, where Kenneth, like, he's very good at acting satyr's motivations in other contexts, I think, but I think he just can't perform any horniness for cats. And like, yeah, like, the women's roles in the Odyssey are going to be restricted. It's a tale about, like, heroic ancient Greece. I think Penelope is a fascinating character. Like, she is a wife waiting at home. Her avenues for resistance and her axes of freedom of what she can do about it are, like, so socially constricted. But she survives and she is true. And she welcomes Odysseus back. And there's a fantastic Emily Wilson essay about the women of the Odyssey where she talks about Penelope performing that role. And also, like, the female goddesses who get to enact all the fantasies of freedom and power, like Athena doing whatever she wants and really driving the action in a way that the human women don't. So I'm extremely excited for the women of the Odyssey.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the, you know, like Charlize Theron, Samantha Morton as Cersei has me very excited because I love a witch, but I love Samantha Morton, so. So that is going to be, like, really exciting for me. Charlize, I think, is playing Nausicaa, I believe, you know, and Zendaya is Athena. Like, you know, if. If you want to pick, like, a woman who is not going to. I mean, other than the time she got thrown off a roof in Spider man, but, like, is not going to really appear, like, weak or damseled. You're going to pick Zendaya to play Athena. That's very exciting to me. I'm really, really thrilled. Is there a particular visual from the story that excites you to see executed? Can I just say really quickly, I don't. I. I need to, like, haven't done my reread of the Odyssey, so my memory is not perfect, obviously, but Nolan was on. When Nolan was on Colbert, and Colbert was asking him about Scylla and Charybdis, he was like. He's like, which one's this and which one's this? Yeah, and Nolan. Nolan's like, this is Scylla and this is Charybdis. And I'm like, no, it's the opposite. And I Just felt. I felt for the only time in my life smarter than Christopher Nolan, because he got one detail wrong about this massive epic that he has dedicated his life to making. That's the only time I'll ever feel smarter than Christopher Nolan. Is there a particular visual from the story, Rebecca, that you're most excited to see?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Yeah, I think, like, all the action pieces, especially the Cyclops, the. And Odysseus, like, going hog wild, slaughtering all the suitors, and like the siege of Troy. I think we have good evidence from the trailers that we'll see all of this and that will be amazing. But the part I'm most excited for is from book 11 of the Odyssey, when he voyages on Circe's advice to the land of Hades to seek counsel from this prophet, Teiresias. And I think we've seen hints. I think we see especially it Elliot Page playing Achilles. I think we see Achilles, like, rising out of the ground as a spirit. So I'm pretty confident that would be an issue.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's unclear who Elliot Page is playing, but playing a dead soldier. So I think you're right, no matter if it's Achilles or someone else, a dead soldier from the war. So I think that that's right, that we are going to go to the land of the dead at some point

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

or Elden R possibly. But, yeah, I think that would be very cool because before Odysseus gets to the prophet, there's like this procession of spirits first, famous women, like the wives and mothers and daughters of all these heroes. And then there's Agamemnon, there's Achilles, there's Heracles, he's watching Sisyphus and it's like a who's who of everybody important in Greek myth. And Odysseus gets overwhelmed and it's this moment where he's confronting his own fate and mortality and wondering how he's going to stack up in the canon. And then all these ghosts start crying out to him and he gets scared and runs away. So I think that will be such a gorgeous, surreal, like, overwhelming moment if it's in the film.

[Joanna Robinson]

That. That section with Elliot Page in the trailer is. Is so spooky and upsetting to me. I'm really excited to see that. Is there anything that. That you want to shout out, Mallory, that you're.

[Mallory Rubin]

I mean, I'm just excited for all of it. I can't. I mean, I. I can't wait. It's. This is like, what a time to be a Nolan fan. This is great. I am Excited. Really excited for Pattinson, the concept of the.

[Joanna Robinson]

Of the Trojan horse being, like, submerged and all the soldiers hidden therein, like, the water's rising and they're not sure that they're going to be able to, like, pull the horse out of the water before they drown. Which is a concept that, like, Nolan came up, like, originally wanted to do if he was going to make Troy a million years ago. And so he's executing here.

[Mallory Rubin]

It's also like, we talked about this when we did Dunkirk, but, like, he did that in Dunkirk. Like, they're even in the shot in the trailer inside of the Trojan. I'm like, someone. It's like, that's. That's in Duncan.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. And you're like, where's Harry Styles? But, yeah, I'm really excited about that. We did get an email today. Someone was like, is the Trojan horse not a puppet? And I say, no, the Trojan horse is not a puppet. It's not articulated. I don't think it's a puppet. I love a puppet. I love the Trojan Trojan horse, but I don't war horse. The stage show. War Horse is about horse puppets, but not the Trojan horse.

[Mallory Rubin]

Rebecca.

[Joanna Robinson]

And anything else. This has been so. It's so fun to hear you talk about the Odyssey. I can't even tell you. I feel like we are so fucking lucky. Is there anything else about the Odyssey that you want to make sure that you touch upon before we go?

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I would like to predict a twist, or not so much a twist, so much as, like, a thematic shift.

[Mallory Rubin]

Tell us.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

I think whatever the climactic fight is, it's probably going to be at home with all the suitors. I think the focus will not be on Odysseus anymore. I think Telemachus will strike the final blow and. And the movie will end up being about him becoming a man. Because I've made the case for Nolan being very interested in parenting and failures for parenting and time you spend with your kids already. And I think as his. As Nolan's kids have aged, the kids in his films are getting more agency. They're getting older. James and Philippa don't do anything famously. They don't age in Dom's visions. But then Murph saves the world using data that coops out, sends back to her. And then for much of Tenet, Max or Neil is the mentor of the protagonist. And then they only swap roles at the end, so he gets to be like, the dad and the best friend. So I really don't think it's accidental now that Nolan's getting older, his kids are getting older, that he's chosen a text that opens with the sun and is really like, as a frame story, actually, about Telemachus manhood and not Odysseus's coming home. So I think Tom Holland, like, whatever happens, like, it's going to be Tom Holland striking the final blow.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah, I like that. And I think that, I mean, you never know when a movie is going into production, into development, casting is beginning and you're hearing whispers, this person's going to be in the movie. This. You never really know, like, how real anything you hear is. But hearing you say this really does take me back to, like, the earliest days of stories about how Christopher Nolan was going to make the Odyssey. It was like Tom Holland's the lead of the movie, not Matt Damon. That was at least how it was first put out into the world. I don't know if that'll end up actually being true, but for at least a moment in time, that was how it was positioned. Like, Tom Holland's going to lead Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey. So I think that whether or not in terms of like, total runtime and screen time that's valid or not, I think it points toward and supports the. The idea that, like, he will be very central and so do the trailer so far. You know, it's very interesting. It's rooted in his experience.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very much the star of the trailer. Absolutely.

[Mallory Rubin]

No question.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love this.

[Mallory Rubin]

I can't believe that we just got to, like, sit here and hear Rebecca. RF Kuang sat here with us on the House of R and told us about the Odyssey. Incredible.

[Sponsor Ad Voice]

What a treat.

[Joanna Robinson]

One last question for you and for my dear friend Mallory here. In the most recent trailer, we do get some Argos content, which is Odysseus Dog. Are you looking forward to the Argos storyline in this movie or how do you. I'm worried about you, Malcolm. I'm concerned.

[Mallory Rubin]

Yeah.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Do you know what happened?

[Joanna Robinson]

I do, I do.

[Mallory Rubin]

Same. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. It was tough to see that little.

[Mallory Rubin]

That little shot of the. Just on my lap petting you. I mean, as I said the other day, well, actually, this pod hasn't aired yet. We've recorded it, but it hasn't aired yet. But Supergirl, I'm incredibly nervous about Crypto's fate and Supergirl too. So I think it's going to be a summer of. Of dog peril.

[Joanna Robinson]

Tough stuff for dog lovers. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your vacation to defend Tenet to us to explain The Odyssey to us. Has Rebecca changed your mind at all, Mallory?

[Mallory Rubin]

I. Yes, in the sense that, like, I feel the way I feel about the movie, but my desire to, like, appreciate Tenant more and form a deeper connection to it was already there, as you know. And so I think hearing you talk about it so beautifully and brilliantly and hearing what it means to you and how it has, like, really gripped you, not only like, intellectually, but on a soul deep level is like, very compelling. And so I look forward to revisiting it again and, you know, continuing to. To. To watch it over time. Like, I'm gonna watch an old movies until I die. I just was one of my favorite filmmakers, so, you know, I'm excited to basically every time he puts out a new one. And his movies are big and they take a long time to make, so we'll have a few years between each movie and just go watch the entire filmography every time, Tenet included. Will I be able to hear a word that any character says? Probably not, but that's okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say, Rebecca, some of the things that you said. It's similar to, like, this whole Rewatch project we've been doing. Like, every time when our colleague Van comes on or when Chris comes on or Mina comes on, on, like, and. And they drop a nugget of a sort of unifying theory of the. Of the Nolan verse, it's like taking another path and weaving back into the fabric of my understanding. So you making this nuclear family, you know, parents and children comp for Tenet makes it a tighter weave inside of the larger Nolan project in a way, you know, that that makes it not like a curiosity you can just sort of like, put aside, but an essential text for their larger know and understanding. And so for that, I think, among other things, Rebecca, thank you so much.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Effy, do you think it all is about the nuclear family for him? Like, people are like, oh, the Odyssey, what a swerve. What a surprise. But it's just about a guy coming home to his wife and his kid, and that's sort of what 10 is about as well. So I really like that reading. I'm glad it was persuasive for you.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, well, thank you to Rebecca.

[Mallory Rubin]

Thank you so much. This was absolute blast.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank you to our entire crew here today. Carlos Cherboga is here. Jacob Cornette is here. Chris Wallers is helping us out with some audio here. Scott Lee is here. Arjuna, Ram, Kapal, Jamia, Dinneron. A whole. A whole crew on our ship going home.

[Mallory Rubin]

Are they our blue team or our red team? That's the question.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're both. They. They both went forward and backwards in time and a temporal pincer movement to make this podcast. Thank you, Rebecca. Happy birthday, and enjoy the rest of your trip.

[Rebecca F. Kuang]

Thank you. This is such a delight.