Did Tenet leave you confused? Don’t worry! I have you covered in this Tenet movie explained article, where I will cover all major plot points!
Warning: Spoilers for Tent Ahead
In this article, the major parts of the Tenet plot are explained, which is why there are massive spoilers. If you have not seen the movie yet, and do not want spoilers, leave and come back later.
What Is Inversion?
Inversion is basically something moving back in time. Tenet will take an excessive thirty minutes of pretentious chit chat to try to explain it but honestly, that will probably just confuse you even more. Just smile and nod as they go on about nuclear fission and entropy and know that it is time travel. Literally. Traveling through time. The end.
Who Is The Protagonist?
The main character, played by John David Washington, does not have a name. He is simply called The Protagonist throughout the movie. I actually found this super interesting, and a nice touch. He is the man that creates Tenet in the future. this is hinted at when he asks Neil (Robert Pattinson) who recruited him, and Neil states it isn’t important.
Throughout the movie Tenet says things like ignorance is important because no one should know their future, it might alter their course. That is how I knew right away he was the one who recruited Neil in the future. At the end of the film, Neil reveals this when he tells The Protagonist “You have a future… in the past.”
So basically everything has happened according to the plan of the future Protagonist. Neil explains that everything we have seen so far is part of a temporal pincer movement (when people become inverted — aka go back in time). This is one of those this was always supposed to happen time travel things. You know, this past always happened.
What Is the Algorithm?
The Algorithm is a device that can invert the entire Earth. The future wants this device so that they can, hopefully, reverse climate change and global warming. Basically the Earth is screwed in the future and they are hoping this will fix it. If it doesn’t and they all die, whatever, they were going to die anyways.
How is Sator Working with the Future?
When Sator was working to clean up a radioactive site, he found a box with instructions from the future. They wanted him to put together the algorithm, bury it for them where they will be able to find it in their time, and signal them by killing himself.
What Happened With Kat & Sator?
Kat, Sator’s wife, is also a major part of this movie. She is the one that goes back in time, and is able to make Sator look like he just disappeared. Sator was most happy when he was trying to get Kat to fall back in love with him in Vietnam. Kat mentions this moment early on in the movie, and even says there was a woman who jumped off the boat and then Sator disappeared.
Again we have the “this always happened” explanation. That woman was her, and Sator disappeared because of her. At one point in the movie Sator shoots here with an inverted bullet. The only way to help her is to use a temporal pincer to go back in time, and then come out of the temporal pincer and pick up your life in that time, so that the bullet itself would be moving forward, not backward, in time.
The Protagonist, Neil, and Kat do this, and that is the fight scene in Oslow. The one we see toward the beginning of the film, where it was heavily indicated that Neil had unmasked either himself or The protagonist. As they get closer to this moment, the place on his arm where the Protagonist shot himself when they were fighting, gets worse and worse. Again, proving this always happened.
That is how Kat ends up “back in time” and she tricks Sator into thinking this is the past version of herself. She reveals herself by showing him her scar, then shoots him, slides him off the boat, and drags his body away so it simply looks like he disappeared.
About Tenet
Armed with one one word – Tenet – and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist (John David Washington) journey through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion.
Tenet is available to take home on December 15th!
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.