Film Review: "American Murder: The Family Next Door" (2020).

From Netflix and the director of Glamour Model Mum, Baby & Me comes American Murder: The Family Next Door. This true crime documentary film directed by Jenny Popplewell. Shanann Watts and her two young daughters went missing in Frederick, Colorado. As details of their deaths made headlines worldwide, it became clear that Shanann’s husband, Chris Watts, wasn’t the man he appeared to be. Experience a gripping and immersive examination of the disintegration of a marriage.

In the early morning of August 13, 2018, The Watts family murders occurred in Frederick, Colorado, United States. Christopher Lee Watts admitted to murdering his pregnant wife Shanann Cathryn Rzucek by strangulation. He later admitted to murdering their daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste, by smothering them with a blanket over their heads. On November 6, 2018, Watts pleaded guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal when the death penalty (which was later abolished in Colorado in 2020) was removed from sentencing. He was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole, three to be served consecutively.

The film tells the entire story through social media videos, text messages, phone call audio, original television newscasts, police body cameras and security camera footage. No narrator, no interviews, no dramatizations. Popplewell has done a great job of highlighting how deceptive we can all be when crafting our digital profiles. The film is as much a portrait of how incredibly well documented our lives are in the digital age as it is a true crime story about familial murder and failed cover-up. It's a heartbreaking tale, particularly since it's told in an unusual form: All the content comes from home movies, social media posts, phone calls and interrogation room videos. The film can't help but reflect the brutality and coldness of Chris's crimes. With studied precision, the movie embodies the type of emptiness it also seeks to document. Crucially, the documentary doesn't concern itself with digging deeper into Chris Watts's persona, with mythologizing him or probing for underlying motives in his behavior. A true-crime documentary far more chilling, yet also emotionally affecting than works of this type generally tend to be. If Popplewell doesn't always manage to justify quite how extensively Shannan's private life is being disseminated here, she nonetheless takes great pleasure in detailing how Chris's story was vigorously pulled apart by the police. Clocking in at eighty-three minutes, it squeezes all it possibly can out of its subject matter. It could almost have been an episode in a show, but it works as a standalone feature regardless. Popplewell's film presents the Watts story as more than a crime story. It is a thematic film about marriage and the deception of social media, as well as a piercing examination of domestic violence constructed with care and undeniable craft. This story is heart-wrenching and horrifying. Yet the telling of it in American Murder: The Family Next Door is deeply satisfying.

Simon says American Murder: The Family Next Door receives:

Series Review: "A Perfect Crime" ("Rohwedder: Einigkeit und Mord und Freiheit") (2020).

"Martyr. Capitalist. Occupier. Victim." This is A Perfect Crime (Rohwedder: Einigkeit und Mord und Freiheit). This German docuseries directed by Jan Peter, Georg Tschurtschenthaler and Torsten Striegnitz. The murder of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, shot as he stood by a window in his Düsseldorf home, shakes the nation. But insiders understood the danger he was in.

On October 16, 1932, German manager and politician, as member of the Social Democratic Party, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was born. In September 1990, he was named president of the Treuhandanstalt, responsible for the privatisation of state-owned property in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). On the night of Monday, April 1, 1991, at 23:30, Rohwedder was shot and killed through a window on the second floor of his house in the suburb of Düsseldorf-Niederkassel (Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 71) by the first of three rifle shots. The second shot wounded his wife Hergard; the third hit a bookcase. The shots were fired from sixty-three miles away from a rifle chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO. It was also the same rifle that was used during a sniper attack on the American embassy in February committed by the Red Army Faction, a West German far-left terrorist group. An inspection of the scene found three cartridge cases, a plastic chair, a towel, and a letter claiming responsibility from an RAF unit named after Ulrich Wessel, a minor RAF figure who had died in 1975. The shooter has never been identified. In 2001, a DNA analysis found that hair strands from the crime scene belonged to RAF member Wolfgang Grams. The Attorney General did not consider this evidence sufficient to name Grams as a suspect of the killing. In 1993, Grams was killed in a shootout with police in Bad Kleinen. On April 10, 1991, Rohwedder was honoured in Berlin with a day of mourning by German President Richard von Weizsäcker, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau, and Chairman of the Board of Treuhandanstalt Jens Odewald. The Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus, the seat of the Federal Finance Ministry, is named in his honour.

The show has one of the most powerful endings of a documentary series, a passionate closing statement full of bravery and hope from one of the many victims who has been to hell and back. Not only will this likely catch on with true crime buffs, but the series is perfectly timed to coincide with the man's movements occurring today. The end result is a remarkable, ultimately heartbreaking saga with no easy answers. You won't come away from the show confident that you solved a mystery, but you might come away changed. Enter A Perfect Crime, which has given me more to look forward to in the decades ahead than any other story in recent memory. As distressing as the documentary is, it's also ultimately hopeful and triumphant. Not that the show is immune to the tricks of its genre. But its story, metastasizing from a single act of violence to depict a warped school culture, is riveting and painful.

Simon says A Perfect Crime (Rohwedder: Einigkeit und Mord und Freiheit) receives:

Series Review: "The Last Word" ("Das letzte Wort") (2020).

From the writer of Was man von hier aus sehen kann comes Das letzte Wort (The Last Word). This German series created by Carlos V. Irmscher and Aron Lehmann. In their twenty-five years of marriage they've shared wonderful moments and good times, had children, fought, and made up. But when her husband Stephan dies unexpectedly, Karla is quickly confronted with secrets they had never discussed. Her shock, pressing financial worries and her doubts over her husband's loyalty push Karla to rush into applying to work with funeral director Borowski as an eulogist. She's unapologetic, loud, and unconventional. Karla ignores her own life until she's surrounded by total chaos and has to ask herself: is there a right way to grieve? And if there is, what's her right way?

The series stars Anke Engelke, Thorsten Merten, Johannes Zeiler, Nina Gummich, Juri Winkler, Gudrun Ritter, Claudia Geisler-Bading, Aaron Hilmer, and Dela Dabulamanzi. Engelke at her best. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll make strange noises doing both at the same time while watching this dark comedy. Engelke is doing next-level stuff, brilliantly balancing black comedy with melancholy for a uniquely life-affirming experience. As it is the case in Engelke's performance, kindness ultimately prevails in this story of an embittered man in a world that has taken so much from him.

The show has its funny moments but it is more drama than comedy, taking seriously its exploration of loss, depression and the resilience of optimism. If you've not seen it, consider it a must-see, even for those who are not fans of these kinds of shows. The show is something else again, straddling all of that beautiful discomfort with something profoundly more complex, an exploration of the pivot between life and death. But the show made me laugh at least four times an episode, and I felt that here was a genuine, rather brave and quite decent attempt to portray true, hopeless grief on screen. While the destination may be incredibly predictable, the journey is more than worth the ride thanks to a script that is in equal parts both funny and surprisingly humane. The show, unspooling in six eminently bingeable near hour long episodes, is bitter and sweet, sad and funny, cruel and tender, cynical and sentimental, heartless and heartwarming, all at the same time and sometimes even in the same scene. The show, for all its casually entertaining cruelties, is a show about moving on and keeping faith with our essential humanity. From the bleak hell of grief, Irmscher and Lehmann have created something redemptive and beautiful. The show is infuriatingly difficult to define. It is by turns outrageous, uplifting, unflinching, sad, hilarious and angry. Mostly, it's an exercise in melancholy, and I adored it. Once in a while, all the pieces come together. The bad news is the show is short (six episodes), so the parts that don't work carry a lot of weight. The show has given us an affecting series, populated with a collection of fine characters, ably played. It doesn't always hit home, but when it does it is something special.

Simon says The Last Word (Das letzte Wort) receives:

Series Review: "Criminal: UK" (2019-20).

From the creators of Stag, Criminal: France, Criminal: Germany, and Criminal: Spain comes Criminal: UK. This British police procedural series created by George Kay and Jim Field Smith. It is part of Netflix's anthology series Criminal. The first series consisted of three episodes, the same as three other series with unrelated stories set in three countries and filmed in local languages: Criminal: France, Criminal: Germany, and Criminal: Spain. Within the walls of an interrogation room and with time running out, London investigators go after three suspects, each accused of a grievous crime.

Principal photography took place at Netflix's production hub at Secuoya Studios, Ciudad de la Tele in Madrid, Spain. The same location was also used for Criminal: France, Criminal: Germany, and Criminal: Spain. Principal photography for the second season took place at Shepperton Studios, London.

The series stars Katherine Kelly, Mark Stanley, Rochenda Sandall, Shubham Saraf, Nicholas Pinnock, David Tennant, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell, Kunal Nayyar, Sophie Okonedo, and Sharon Horgan. The glory will go to Tennant as the guest star, but Kelly deserves just as many plaudits for her equally restrained, unshowy and completely convincing performance as the officer in charge of the investigation.

It's safe to say that you can be a tourist in this series, though it may not be strictly necessary to visit all four countries to get a sense of its world. There's something crushingly repetitive about the show, primarily because of its contained setting which risks restraining the action to the point it feels claustrophobic. The filmmakers treat each story as an exercise in filmmaking logistics, and the result often feels like an absorbing and kinetic movie adaptation of a stage play. The show is a sterling example of incredibly smart, unorthodox programming. It's small-scale yet, at the same time, large-scale as it spans several countries and languages. The show manages to reach deeper into the core of police drama without the bells and whistles, tersely drilling down to the mental struggle between the police and the suspects. The show demonstrates how with excellent writing, fantastic performances and arresting camerawork, a show set almost entirely in one room can make for a gripping and thrilling watch. The show is a bold and welcome departure, but the lack of an overriding story arc means it's not a series suited to binge-watching, which would blunt its impact. The show does have its moments and it's an interesting experiment by Netflix and the makers to try and craft something new in a heavily saturated field of television. The show is a plain, no-frills drama that avoids being drab by turning the police interview room into a chessboard with only psychology allowed as a weapon. These head-to-head duels are breathless, propulsive and hypnotically gripping. It's skilfully directed and stylishly European in production values, with a haunting electro soundtrack and spare, slate grey decor. The show is a marvel of acrobatic camerawork and clever transitions. Fans of formal experiments will eat the show up - at least at first.

Simon says Criminal: UK receives:

Film Review: "The Social Dilemma" (2020).

"The technology that connects also controls us." This is The Social Dilemma. This docudrama film directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Orlowski, Davis Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. Set in the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley, this film hybrid fuses investigative documentary with enlightening narrative drama. Expert testimony from tech whistle-blowers exposes our disturbing predicament: the services Big Tech provides-search engines, networks, instant information, etc.-are merely the candy that lures us to bite. Once we're hooked and coming back for more, the real commodity they sell is their prowess to influence and manipulate us.

In addition to exploring the rise of social media and the damage it has caused to society, it focuses on its exploitation of its users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining, how its design is meant to nurture an addiction, its use in politics, its effect on mental health (including the mental health of adolescents and rising teen suicide rates), and its role in spreading conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and aiding groups such as flat-earthers. The film features interviews with former Google design ethicist and Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris, his fellow Center for Humane Technology co-founder Aza Raskin, Asana co-founder and Facebook like button co-creator Justin Rosenstein, Harvard University professor Shoshana Zuboff, former Pinterest president Tim Kendall, AI Now director of policy research Rashida Richardson, Yonder director of research Renee DiResta, Stanford University Addiction Medicine Fellowship program director Anna Lembke, and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier. 

Orlowski's suspenseful and thought-provoking documentary focuses on the ethical and existential crisis of technology. The film makes you feel vaguely sick, especially when it explains how the destruction of moral ethics could lead to the existential destruction of humanity. A story of passionate pioneers and experts who are concerned about technology's moral ambiguity becomes a clarion call for change and one of the year's most essential movies. The film is a remarkable experience, one that teeters between overwhelming the viewer with the scope of humanity's ruin and inspiring them to find ways to help. I strongly recommend watching the film, after which I urge you to please reconsider your social media accounts. Because seriously, folks, you will never see them in the same way again. The urgency of this problem requires people to become informed about the issues, starting with seeing the film either at the IFC or on Netflix. This cautionary tale is far more grand than social media, and once we realize as much, perhaps we can reverse the consequences before it is too late. By film's end, you'll not only see your social media differently but also as nightmares in which they will be no escape if you allow it to control you. The film makes a powerful case less through argument than by using cinema's most basic tool: visual proof. The message will stay with you, but so will the nagging sense that you can't really do anything unless you happen to be a world leader.

Simon says The Social Dilemma receives:

Also, see my review for Chasing Coral.

Film Review: "#Alive" ("#살아있다") (2020).

"You Must Survive" in #Alive (#살아있다). This South Korean zombie film directed by Cho Il-hyung, adapted by Cho and Matt Naylor, and based on the 2019 American horror film of the same time written by Naylor. As a grisly virus rampages a city, a lone man stays locked inside his apartment, digitally cut off from seeking help and desperate to find a way out.

By early October 2019, Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-hye, Lee Hyun-wook, Oh Hye-won, Jin So-yeon and Yoo Yeon were cast. Yoo said that he worked hard to make a puffy body Joon-woo by consuming salty food. Also, It is the first time for Yoo to appear with the bleached hair in his films. He at first wore a black wig to distinguish because he shot as soon as finished filming Voice of Silence (2020). But when he took off the wig for a brief moment at the shooing set, the production head saw Yoo's bleached hair and said his short hair was better. After the field staff voted on the spot, Joon-woo's hairstyle was decided. Later, at the request of the audience, Yoo released a photo of him wearing the wig on his Instagram account. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in early December. Filming took place at Studio Cube in Dajeon, South Korea. In August 2020, Netflix acquired the international distribution rights to the film and set the film for a September 8, 2020 release date.

The film stars Yoo Ah-in, Park, Lee, Oh, Jin and Yoo Yeon. Yoo Ah-in comes to realize that selfish short-sighted attention is inherently inhuman. Metaphorically, it's what separates us from the zombies. A film that has a protagonist with a conventional dramatic arc, but everything that surrounds this predictable characterization is pure imaginative fire, served with devilish dominion of the filmic space.

Although it's predominantly horror, many of the concepts wisely double as opportunities to comment on the government's inability to handle widespread predicaments. The film doesn't blaze any new trails, but it transcends the tricks and tropes of a genre that so often feels it has nothing more to offer. During the harrowing ordeal, you're hunkered down with a likable group of survivors who jump resourcefully from one trap to the next, with the real monsters being the executive types. The bad stuff can be ignored and the good stuff is so, so good. The terror is nuanced and visceral, a gut reaction to the scale and speed of the attacks on screen. The amount of energy that director Cho Il-hyung is able to infuse into the film is a welcome change from the stop and go nature of recent entries in the genre. With a combination of incredible casting, rapid pacing and great scripting, it is the best South Korean zombie film you'll ever see. Overpopulation may have diluted the effects of zombies, but as long as filmmakers with the prowess of Sang-ho can make entertaining movies, zombies don't have to be so damn boring.

Simon says #Alive (#살아있다) receives:

Also, see my review for A Violent Prosecutor (검사외전).

Film Review: "Bill & Ted Face the Music" (2020).

"The future awaits" in Bill & Ted Face the Music. This science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. It is the third film in the Bill & Ted series, and the sequel to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991). The ruler of the future tells best friends Bill and Ted they must compose a new song to save life as we know it. But instead of writing it, they decide to travel through time to steal it from their older selves. Meanwhile, their young daughters devise their own musical scheme to help their fathers bring harmony to the universe.

After the release and success of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, there were no immediate plans for a sequel. Around 2005, Keanu Reeves was asked if he had any interest in playing Ted again, to which he responded positively. Around 2008, conceptualization for a third film began. In September 2010, Alex Winter confirmed that they had come onto an idea for a plot that they felt appropriate with Matheson and Solomon beginning to work on the script with significant input from Reeves and Winter. By April 2011, the first draft of the script had been completed. By August 2012, Parisot was hired to direct. While Reeves and Winter were both eager to return to their roles, but there was little interest in the script from any studios. Around 2014, the filmmakers began trying to appeal to fans. In September 2014, after the release of John Wick, the film's outlook changed. David Haring and Patrick Dugan, came in to provide the financial backing for the film, and by the end of September 2014, rewrites on the film begun while efforts were made to find a studio. Even with initial funding, it still took several years for them to make necessary deals for the actual production. During this time, the script was mostly finalized and entitled as Bill & Ted Face the Music. The filmmakers then approached MGM to secure distribution, prior to its relaunch of Orion Pictures in September 2017. MGM accepted the offer. In early May 2018, the film was formally greenlit. In late March 2019, Winter and Reeves affirmed that production was ready to commence, and that they had secured an August 21, 2020 release date. By early July, Winter, Reeves, and William Sadler were confirmed to reprise their roles, with Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, and Jillian Bell. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late August. Filming took place throughout California and New Orleans. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was moved to August 14, 2020 before then being delayed to August 28, 2020. As further complications from the pandemic continued to threaten movie theater openings, it was announced in late July that the film would be released in a combined theatrical and Premium VOD premiere on September 1, 2020. Then, in early August, Winter announced that the film had been moved back to its August 28 slot.

The cast, especially Reeves and Winter, are clearly having a wonderful time. The enthusiasm is contagious.

Though not as strong as its predecessors, this is a better threequel than expected, and it's well worth an hour and a half of your time.

Simon says Bill & Ted Face the Music receives:

Also, see my review for RED 2.

Film Review: "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" (2020).

"I'm thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks, it lingers, it dominates. There's not much I can do about it, trust me. It doesn't go away. It's there whether I like it or not. It's there when I eat, when I go to bed. It's there when I sleep. It's there when I wake up. It's always there. Always." This is I'm Thinking of Ending Things. This psychological drama film adapted and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Iain Reid. Despite second thoughts about their relationship, a young woman takes a road trip with her new boyfriend to his family farm. Trapped at the farm during a snowstorm with Jake's mother and father, the young woman begins to question the nature of everything she knew or understood about her boyfriend, herself, and the world.

Described as a psychological thriller and horror fiction, Reid's debut novel was first published in 2016. The novel was selected by National Public Radio as one of the best books of 2016, was a finalist in the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award, and appeared on the 2017 Ottawa Independent Writers Frank Hegyi Award for Emerging Authors longlist. In January 2018, it was announced that Netflix would produce an adaptation of Reid's novel with Kaufman as writer and director. By mid March 2019, Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette and David Thewlis were cast. Originally, in December 2018, Brie Larson was originally cast before being replaced by Buckley. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late April. Filming took place in Fishkill, New York.

The film stars Plemons, Buckley, Collette and Thewlis. The cast are perfectly cast in this film. Buckley's vulnerability is stunning, and she has channelled her internal skills into a tightly controlled performance that makes the absurd completely believable and terrifying.

A spectacular film that delves into a primitive feeling more authentically than any other film. A modern classic. The film is a whirlwind of emotions, and it is the kind of psychological horror/thriller that is just grounded enough, in reality, to inspire and incite, but dark enough to deserve its own special place in the genre's history. It's a surprising, clever horror/thriller twist, even as the relationship drama it dredges up doesn't feel at all like horror/thriller. At its core, the film could have been just another horror/thriller. Refracted through Kaufman's wonderfully weird prism, it's something truly memorable. The result is a cinematic vagueness that makes the film less aesthetic yet more persuasive. This is how nightmares really look: like reality, only less so. It's a very Kaufmanesque narrative experiment, technically ingenious and sophisticated. It also looks like some lost psychological horror/thriller idea by Shirley Jackson. The latest and darkest psychological horror/thriller adapted by Kaufman, America's most - we should probably say only - intellectually provocative filmmaker. The film entertains for the most part and gives us a set of marvellous performances from this outstanding cast, even if it doesn't quite reach the near-genius of Kaufman's other works.

Simon says I'm Thinking of Ending Things receives:

Also see my review for Anomalisa.

Film Review: "The New Mutants" (2020).

"There is something new to fear" in The New Mutants. This superhero horror film directed by Josh Boone, written by Boone and Knate Lee, and based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name created by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz. It is the thirteenth and final installment in the X-Men film series. Five teenage mutants undergo treatments at a secret institution that will cure them of their dangerous powers. However, their memories soon turn into terrifying realities as they start to question why they're being held and who's trying to destroy them.

After completing work on The Fault in Our Stars (2014), Boone created a comic book with Lee to illustrate what a potential film trilogy adapting the New Mutants comics would be like. Boone and Lee took the comic to producer Simon Kinberg who "really liked it". In May 2015, Fox hired Boone to co-write and direct the film. In March 2016, Kinberg said that, like Deadpool (2016), the film would be different from the core X-Men films and would have a young adult "vibe". In May, Kinberg stated his hope for filming to start at the beginning of 2017. In April 2017, the film entered pre-production in Boston, Massachusetts. Fox scheduled the film for an April 13, 2018 release date. Boone confirmed the film would be "a full-fledged horror movie set within the X-Men universe..." By early July, Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga were cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in mid September. Filming took place in Medfield, Massachusetts. Boone and editors Matthew Dunell and Robb Sullivan delivered a cut of the film to Fox that they were happy with. Three days of additional photography were planned to complete the "YA movie" that Boone, Lee, and Fox had agreed to make. However, following the successful release of the film It (2017), Fox decided to make the film more like Boone's original vision rather than completing the version that they had been making during production. In January 2018, the film's release date was pushed back to February 22, 2019. It allowed time for the reshoots required to make the film more frightening. The additional photography was soon set for mid-2018. In March, Fox again delayed the film's release to August 2, 2019. However, following the acquisition of Fox by Disney in March 2019, the studio pushed the film's release back to April 3, 2020. Reshoots for the film ultimately did not take place as Boone found that the cast had aged too much since principal photography had taken place. In early March 2020, Boone stated that the film was complete. However, Disney removed the film from its release schedule, along with several other films due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Disney scheduled the film for an August 28, 2020 release date.

Though confident performances were given by the cast, they never really generated any sympathy for their characters.

The film offers an imaginative and perfectly competent entry for a franchise already starting to succumb to franchise fatigue.

Simon says The New Mutants receives:

Also see my reviews for The Fault in Our Stars and Deadpool 2.

Film Review: "Tenet" (2020).

"Time Runs Out" in Tenet. This spy film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

Over twenty years, Nolan conceived the ideas for the film, but remarked "I've been working on this iteration of the script for about six or seven years". In March 2019, John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, and Elizabeth Debicki were cast. By late May, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, Himesh Patel, Martin Donovan, and Mélanie Laurent rounded out the film's cast. Nolan chose Washington for his performance in BlacKkKlansman (2018). There was much secrecy surrounding the project before its release. Nolan chose Pattinson after seeing his performances in Good Time (2017) and The Lost City of Z (2016). When casting for the female lead, Nolan nearly passed on Debicki because he thought that she was an American after seeing her in Widows (2018). So when Thomas suggested the actress, she had to inform him that she wasn't American. Kapadia's screen test was put together by director Homi Adajania while working on his 2020 film Angrezi Medium. Washington, Pattinson and Debicki were only allowed to read the script once, in a locked room at Warner Bros. studios. It took Washington around five hours to finish reading it because he kept flipping back and forth "in pure amazement." Branagh revealed that he read the script more times than anything he had ever worked on. He compared navigating through the script to doing the Times' crossword puzzle every single day. Caine wasn't even allowed to read the entire script; he was only given his scenes to read before shooting. Prior to the film's release, Caine told press that he had no idea what the movie was about, despite being a close friend and a frequent collaborator of Nolan. 

At the same time, with a budget of $205 million, principal photography commenced and wrapped in early November. Filming took place in Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States under the working title Merry Go Round. The film was shot on IMAX and 70mm film with Panavision lenses. Custom equipment and lenses were made for the film, that allowed IMAX cameras to be used more heavily. For instance, a custom camera head was built for the film, that would fit within a car and let an IMAX camera be turned around 360 degrees. Lenses were also constructed that would allow the filmmakers to shoot in lower-light situations, something that is traditionally limited when shooting with IMAX cameras. Nolan is a huge fan of the James Bond movies, and that love of the spy genre flows through the film. However, Nolan tried his best not to watch any movies that may overtly influence him while working on the film - this was the longest period of time the director had ever gone in his life without watching a Bond film. This is because he wanted to work from a memory and a feeling of that genre; he wasn't trying to do his own version of a James Bond movie, but was instead attempting to create the excitement that many people felt watching the Bond films when they were kids. One of director Nolan's filmmaking traditions is to gather his cast and crew together before production begins and screen movies that served as inspiration to the project they're working on together. For this film, however, Nolan intentionally broke his longstanding tradition and didn't host any screenings. He wanted the cast and crew to work from a feeling and memory of the spy genre (including the James Bond films), as opposed to trying to recreate them. Special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher watched World War II movies and documentaries to find reference points for realism. 

For the film's score, Zimmer turned Nolan down for the first time in over a decade due to scheduling conflicts with scoring his longtime passion project Dune (2020). He was replaced by newcomer Ludwig Göransson, who had recently won an Oscar for his work on Black Panther (2018). Zimmer is friends with Göransson and had suggested him to Nolan. Göransson was about to begin orchestral sessions for the film's score when the United States shut down to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As a result, the soundtrack was completed by putting together individual recordings of the musicians in their homes. Warner Bros. Pictures originally scheduled Tenet for a July 17, 2020 release in IMAX, 35 mm, and 70 mm film. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was first delayed to July 31, and subsequently August 12. After being held up indefinitely, Warner Bros. arranged the film to be released internationally on August 26 in seventy countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. It will then move to select cities in the United States on September 3, gradually expanding in the ensuing weeks. Although many film productions were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nolan was able to complete post-production in more or less the same way he normally would. A rough cut of the film was finished before the lockdown came into place, and further editing was completed in Nolan's edit suit in his Los Angeles home, where he's worked on his films since The Dark Knight (2008). It also helped that, though based in California, Nolan has used visual effects house Double Negative London for years and therefore is used to corresponding remotely.

Washington confidently embodied The Protagonist while Pattinson has all the fun in the best action sequence. It is Debicki's performance that does the emotional heavy lifting. Branagh is his usual terrific self. He is the Sir Laurence Olivier of this generation.

A smart summer thriller filled with visionary set pieces, grand imagery and exciting twists, but its lack of a straightforward and emotional center keeps it just short of greatness. However, it is a different kind of espionage thriller that is hard to imagine it coming from any filmmaker other than Nolan.

Simon says Tenet receives:

Also, see my review for Dunkirk.