Robert Pattinson, all grown up, in Tenet.
Image: Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Bros.
Spoiler warning: This article discusses the ending of Tenet in detail.
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is a movie so uninterested in backstory that its guide character is identified as merely “the Protagonist.” But as a foppishly charming British gentleman with a graduate diploma in physics could say, mother nature abhors a vacuum. So, presented with a surfeit of facts on just about every character who’s not Evil Russian Kenneth Branagh, viewers have begun to speculate on their top secret histories: a fertile subject matter, because the movie’s time-vacation — sorry, inversion — engineering means that any person can appear from anywhere … and anywhen.
Of these, just one character’s backstory has proven primarily ripe for conjecture: Robert Pattinson’s Neil, whom a lot of followers are certain is basically the all-developed-up model of Max, the young son of Evil Russian Kenneth Branagh and Sad Elizabeth Debicki, whom Tenet lovers know will also be killed if Branagh’s villain succeeds in his approach to reverse the flow of time and demolish actuality.
Yes, which is proper, we’ve obtained a enthusiast theory twofer — a This Character Is Secretly The Older Model Of Yet another Character and a This Character Is Secretly The Boy or girl Of This Other Character. Is there any benefit to this particular principle, or is this an additional Meera-Is-Jon-Snow’s-Twin condition? Let us operate down the proof in favor to start with:
We really don’t know when in the timeline Neil is “from.”
At the conclusion of the movie, following they’ve fulfilled, traveled alongside one another by means of time, and saved the present from being wiped out by the future, but just before he reverses as a result of time to choose a bullet for him, Neil reveals to John David Washington’s Protagonist that, from his point of view, they’ve basically regarded each individual other for pretty some time: “This is the close of a attractive friendship.” (Nolan recommendations us off in their initial meeting, when Neil previously is aware the Protagonist does not consume on the position.) A long term variation of the Protagonist recruited Neil into Tenet, and crucially, we’re not advised when in the timeline that meeting took place. Did the Protagonist journey back again in time and satisfy Young Neil (not that a single) in the previous, or did this meeting come about in the upcoming, with Neil then inverting to the present? If so, that would necessarily mean there’s also a little one model of Neil managing all around for the duration of the situations of the film. And you know who else is a boy or girl?
Neil’s “Britishness” dial is turned up to 11, just like Max’s mom.
This a single is admittedly a minor far more anecdotal, but listen to me out. Nolan has under no circumstances been 1 to shy absent from traditional British iconography, and equally Neil and Elizabeth Debicki’s Kat feel to embody different, but related, archetypes of Britishness. (Debicki herself is Australian.) He’s a basic English gentleman, which signifies he wears Saville Row suits, flouncily murmurs items like “Don’t be so extraordinary,” and often looks to be a little drunk she’s far more of a Sloane Ranger variety, an art auctioneer who you can just envision owns an entire closet-complete of Barbour jackets. (The character’s aesthetics, put together with the fact that she’s trying to escape her marriage to an more mature man she despises, unintentionally foreshadow Debicki’s upcoming job.) I never want to discounted the risk that this is just how Christopher Nolan characters are, but it’s continue to well worth noting that, in spite of not interacting a great deal, the two do feel to be connected visually.
What is “Neil” backwards?
This is where we get into genuine galaxy-brain territory. Some admirers have speculated that “Max” is small for “Maximilien.” Reverse the previous four letters of that name the similar way our heroes vacation backwards by means of time, and what do you get? N-E-I-L. This is a true basic of a unique sort of round World-wide-web reasoning, wherever you invent a point about a character (typically a top secret title), and then take care of the matter that you on your own created up as proof your principle is suitable — I appreciate it so much. I will say this for this speculation: That a madman who needs to kill a bunch of folks for the greater fantastic would choose this specific spelling for his son’s name feels disturbingly plausible.
And uh, which is fundamentally it. But longstanding theories have undoubtedly been spun out of fewer, so let’s check out the counter-proof to see which is much more plausible.
Neil doesn’t seem to treatment considerably about Kat.
There is a lot of small business in Tenet about how time-spies maintain a good deal of insider secrets from every single other, and only give out details on a need-to-know basis, which: confident. On the other hand, if Neil truly was supposed to be Kat’s mystery son, would not it make feeling to involve scenes where by they two interact in a major way, if only to mine drama out of the pressure? That does not occur. Neil fortunately operates alongside Kat, but he evinces no strong feelings towards her at all it is always the Protagonist who’s pushing to include things like her in the approach, or carve out some security for her. And Kat, whose appreciate for her son is practically her only character trait, reveals a comparable absence of fascination in Neil.
The math does not fairly work.
Robert Pattinson is 34. Laurie Shepherd, who performs Max, is 10. We know that when you invert oneself, time passes for you at the similar price to go again a 7 days, you have to invest a week inverted. Now, no matter whether you age ahead or backwards whilst inverted is an open issue, but both way, it is dicey. If you age forwards, Neil would have experienced to enter a Turnstile in his early twenties, then expend over a 10 years inverted to make up the age gap. And if you age backward, grownup-Neil would have turned back into a kid himself, which obviously did not take place.
Eventually, Neil himself implies he’s not from the future.
In his massive speech at the stop, Neil tells the Protagonist, “You have a future in the earlier,” from which we can infer that their very first conference happened when an more mature Protagonist traveled again in time to established up Tenet prior to the occasions of the film. It’s probable that he’s purely talking about his possess past, but if that were being so, he’d possibly phrase it additional obviously? It feels like good evidence that Neil is what he appears to be like like — an adult who’s aged typically, and not a time-traveling baby.