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Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020
Scene 31 of 275 · ≈ 3 min on screen · Act one
An unnamed intelligence operative, recruited into a shadow war fought through time-inverted weapons and objects, teams with an enigmatic ally to stop a dying Russian oligarch from using technology gifted by a dying future to erase the present.
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
Broken by torture and 'killed,' he needs a new purpose; Fay offers one that transcends the nation-state loyalties that just got his team killed.
He locates the 'Windfarm Transitions' tenant listing in the lobby.
Barbara challenges him with the Tenet handshake before letting him through a locked door.
Barbara tells him the mission is to prevent something worse than nuclear war.
This scene
Barbara hands the Protagonist a semi-automatic. He reflexively checks the chamber and magazine – EMPTY.
BARBARA
Aim it and pull the trigger.
The Protagonist SHRUGS, lifts the empty pistol, sights a target 25m away with several holes in it...
He squeezes the trigger – BAM! – a shot. He is CONFUSED...
BARBARA (CONT'D)
Check the magazine.
The Protagonist checks the clip – THERE IS A ROUND IN IT.
PROTAGONIST
How?
Barbara pulls on PROTECTIVE GLOVES and removes the round from the clip, placing it next to an identical one on a table.
BARBARA
One of these bullets is, like us,
travelling forwards through time.
The other one’s going backwards.
Can you tell which is which?
The Protagonist shakes his head. Barbara reaches forward –
BARBARA (CONT'D)
How about now? –
One of the rounds FLIES UP INTO HER HAND, FALLING IN REVERSE. The Protagonist is taken aback. Barbara holds the round towards him so he can inspect it –
BARBARA (CONT'D)
It’s inverted – its entropy runs
backwards. So, to our eyes, its
movement is reversed. We think it’s
a type of inverse radiation,
triggered by nuclear fission.
PROTAGONIST
You didn’t make it?
BARBARA
We don’t know how. Yet.
PROTAGONIST
So where’d it come from?
BARBARA
Someone’s manufacturing them in the
future. They’re streaming back at
us.
Barbara places the round on the table, in front of a CAMERA.
BARBARA (CONT'D)
Try it.
BARBARA (CONT'D)
You have to have dropped it.
The Protagonist reaches out again – it LEAPS UP INTO HIS HAND.
PROTAGONIST
How can it move before I touch it?
She cues up the recording of what he just did –
BARBARA
From your point of view you caught
it, but from the bullet’s point of
view...
She plays it BACKWARDS –
BARBARA (CONT'D)
...you dropped it.
ON THE SCREEN: the round FALLS from his hand.
PROTAGONIST
But cause has to come before
effect.
BARBARA
No. That’s just how we see time.
She PULLS the round towards herself using one finger – the round follows her finger as if MAGNETIZED...
PROTAGONIST
What about free will?
BARBARA
That bullet wouldn’t have moved if
you hadn’t put your hand there.
Either way we run the tape, you
made it happen.
She LAUNCHES it up into her other hand –
BARBARA (CONT'D)
Don’t try to understand it. Feel
it.
Barbara PLAYS with the round in increasingly IMPROBABLE, BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENTS... The round SHOOTS AWAY FROM HER – the Protagonist CATCHES IT...
PROTAGONIST
Instinct. Got it.
Barbara smiles, swaps him the round for the pistol. She then places a TRAY COVERED IN SHELL CASINGS beside him.
The Protagonist aims at the target – a shell casing LEAPS into the gun – he FIRES, and a bullet hole near the bullseye VANISHES –
PROTAGONIST (CONT'D)
Why does it feel so strange?
BARBARA
You’re not shooting the bullet,
you’re catching it.
PROTAGONIST
Whoa.
The Protagonist examines the target – no bullet holes.
PROTAGONIST (CONT'D)
I’ve seen this type of ammunition
before.
BARBARA
In the field?
PROTAGONIST
I was almost hit.
BARBARA
Then you are exceedingly lucky...
The Protagonist turns to her...
BARBARA (CONT'D)
An inverted bullet passing through
your body would be devastating. The
inverse radiation would spread
through your body. Like polonium
poisoning. Not pretty.
The Protagonist examines the rounds...
PROTAGONIST
These look like today’s.
BARBARA
They may have been made today, then
inverted years from now.
PROTAGONIST
Where did you get them?
BARBARA
They came with the wall. I was
assigned it, like all the material
I’m studying here.
PROTAGONIST
Do you have an analysis of the
metals?
BARBARA
Sure. Why?
PROTAGONIST
The mixture of alloys can tell me
where they might have been made.
Look, I know you said that ‘what’
is my business –
BARBARA
Let’s not go off-topic.
PROTAGONIST
I’m not seeing Armageddon here.
Barbara takes the round from him, and beckons him to follow –