What I’m watching: a film I’m still trying to figure out.

In theaters: Tenet

Director and writer Christopher Nolan is well known for challenging an audience. His films “Memento,” “Inception” and “Interstellar” all require the audience to be actively engaged in what they are watching. Even his depiction of the World War II story of Dunkirk was structured in a way that was certainly not traditional for a war film.

I knew going in that at two and a half hours running time, Nolan’s latest film would probably be a bit of an endurance test. The preview indicated it was a film that had a premise with the manipulation of time, which I generally find problematic.

Because of the pandemic, the release of the film had been delayed several times. It is by far the most prominent release with the reopening of movie theaters to date.

Visually the film is a stunner, like the rest of Nolan’s movies. Filmed around the world, the locations ground the film in reality, which increased the edge of the science fiction tone of the film. Like “Dunkirk,” Nolan shot the film in IMAX, although the 35mm version I saw was impressive.

The story revolves around an intelligence agent with no name played by John David Washington – called “The Protagonist” – who is recruited in a secret organization called “Tenet.” Tenet is trying to prevent a new world war – and later revealed as the end of the world – that doesn’t involve nuclear weapons but the use of time warfare.

Scientists from the future have developed means of going forward and backward in time and apparently used Sator, a Russian mobster, (Kenneth Branagh) as the person who would use an artifact to invert time for the entire world, destroying it.

The Protagonist must, with the aid of other Tenet agents, acquire the artifact before Sator sets off the device.

This short synopsis doesn’t do the complexity of the plot justice. I’m just trying to let you now what you should expect.

Nolan’s script, which reportedly took him six or seven years to write, is perhaps his most dense. The details of the artifact and how the time inversion works are dribbled out a little at a time. It puts the audience in the same shoes of The Protagonist and even when we all learn something new, the explanations are still a little confusing.

The sound mix of this film does not help audiences understand the nuances of the plot, as much of the dialogue in certain scenes is drowned out by either sound effects or music.

Events in the film are frequently seen in two ways: the reality of present time moving forward and the inverted time that allows characters to move inside of present time but backwards. There are events that happen at one point in the film that are then repeated to show audiences a new perspective of what they just witnessed.

Got that?

The performances are solid and Washington does well in his central role. I liked the coldness of Branagh’s gangster and Robert Pattinson’s character provides fine support to The Protagonist. You think he knows all but …

“Tenet” is the kind of film that will undoubtedly stir debate among fans. Nolan has constructed a film that will provide people years worth of analysis.

Is “Tenet” worth seeing? If you are up to the challenge of densely plotted film about time travel, then the answer is “yes.” If you’re not, see something else.  

That challenge is considerable though. Take a restroom break and you might be lost.

The end of the film reveals details that might make your head explode as you’re trying to process what you’ve seen. You’ve been warned.