Going to the Tull to see ‘ Tenet’
It’s been more than six months since I set foot in a movie theater — long enough ago that I can’t remember what the movie was. This week, I returned to a movie theater, but this time everything about the movie- going experience was memorable.
Though we’re still in the grip of a global pandemic, my curiosity about “Tenet,” the latest Christopher Nolan film, overwhelmed my COVID- fueled reluctance about sitting for 2.5 hours in enclosed public spaces.
Fans of Mr. Nolan’s films are usually very particular about what screens they see his movies on, so talk about aspect ratios and the quality of the sound mixing takes up about as much time as each movie’s plot, which is always impenetrable to mere mortals sitting in 70 mm IMAX theaters trying desperately not to be left behind by too much exposition.
I didn’t see “Tenet” at one of the national chain theaters that have turned the movie- going experience into something that borrows a little too much from industrial factory farming. For my first venture back into theaters in half a year, I decided to go to the Tull Family Theater, an independent high- tech, high- concept movie house in the heart of Sewickley.
If you can imagine a movie theater perfectly retrofitted to the needs of the public in these pandemic times, it would be impossible to imagine a better place to see a movie than the Tull theater, even though it doesn’t have an IMAX screen. What it does have is the health and safety of the public in mind.
Even entering the theater’s beautiful lobby, you’re reminded that safety protocols come first. If you don’t have a mask, one will be provided. No one has the option of not wearing a mask. Everything, including standing in line for refreshments, is socially distanced.
Customers aren’t given physical tickets; they’re instructed by very pleasant masked ushers to follow arrows through clearly marked hallways to the screening room showing their movie.
Once inside, we could see that every other row was taped off to encourage social distancing. There weren’t more than two dozen people in the theater the evening I saw “Tenet,” so I felt pretty comfortable picking out a spot. We could sit wherever we felt most comfortable and not at a numbered seat you’re forced to buy at a movie chain theater.
And what a civilized crowd it was. My fellow moviegoers were considerate enough to have their masks down only while eating. At all other times ( at least the three other people sitting on the opposite end of my row that I could see clearly) followed the Tull theater’s mandate to fully cover their noses and mouths.
While the movie failed to engage me when there weren’t outlandish stunts and pyrotechnics on the screen to distract me from its perfectly beautiful opaqueness, I felt completely safe.
When the characters tried to explain the “grandfather paradox” to each other in ways that only made understanding the film more difficult, I luxuriated in the electrostatic dual- ionization air- purifier system that treated and turned over all the air in the theater five times per hour.
There was no vaguely mildewy, stale popcorn smell lingering in the air as at most theaters. The Tull theater smells the way 100% natural mountain water tastes — unobtrusive, but enervating. Though the movie itself was impenetrable at times, I was 100% alert, which doesn’t typically happen — believe me. I blame the clean air for my lack of brain fog.
I wish I could say more about the movie itself, but honestly, I didn’t understand it enough to offer a reliable summary. I liked what bits of it I could understand, though. The cast, beginning with the movie’s unnamed protagonist played by John David Washington, is first rate, even though they’re reduced to reciting a lot of mumbo- jumbo and exposition about moving forward and backward in time.
For some reason, someone in the future is trying to flood our timeline with particles that will start a chain reaction that will blow up everything in existence ( I think). So, there’s a war between time zones ( the present and the future) that can only be resolved in an apocalyptic battle fought by double- dealing combatants moving forward and backward in time. Got that? No, you don’t!
Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh all take turns being inscrutable while Mr. Washington’s character, known only as The Protagonist, tries to figure out what’s going on as he puts a cheese- grater to creative use against men trying to kill him.
The set pieces are magnificent. The opening scene centers on a terrorist attack on the Kiev Opera House that is stunning in its execution. Supposedly, no CGI was used in this film, just well- coordinated stunts.
There’s also a very tense scene involving a plane rolled into an airport hangar area to provide a distraction to a caper happening nearby. There hasn’t been a more exciting freeway chase scene in a movie since the second “Matrix” film, so that alone is worth the cost of admission. No one will be bored by “Tenet,” only mystified. I’ll reserve final judgment until I can see it again on HBO or Netflix with subtitles.
Though I wasn’t as satisfied by the movie as I would’ve liked, I was satisfied with my first COVID- 19 experience in a movie theater. The fact that it was at limited capacity probably had something to do with it. It made the spectacle of people coming back from the dead and agents catching bullets and talking about “time inversion” enjoyable.
But as I left the continuously refreshed air of the theater for the unfiltered air of real life, I realized what was missing from that particular movie experience: There were no screaming babies, no snoring patrons, no sticky popcorn floor, no competing light from cellphones and no mindless chatting through the movie’s slower sections ( and there were many).
That’s when I had the most perverse notion of all: Wouldn’t it be great if places like the Tull Family Theater became the new normal moving forward?