Nicha

Seo Do-young and Han Dong-soo in EVILIVE (2023)

this scene after seeing the movie just hit different

What's happened, happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It's not an excuse to do nothing.

Fate?

Call it what you want.

What do you call it?

[spoilers follow]

Like, they think that they're not understanding the time-inversion stuff, and though I'd argue a large portion of the film is bogged down in techno-babble where it doesn't need to be (and the big battle could have been handled more interestingly) everything visually on the screen is more than enough to understand how the concept works on first viewing.

But then detractors are saying Nolan has gone too high concept at the expense of Character. Even Mark Kermode, who enjoyed the film, claims there's nothing philosophical about it, as previous Nolan works have been.

But I'd argue that this is a film in which Character doesn't actually matter. Washington's lead is only named as The Protagonist, after all.

Instead the film is about the philosophical theme of predeterminism. What's happened has happened, and going into the past does not - can not - change that, because everything in the past has already happened, even if it was someone from the future doing it.

Time and again Nolan shows us this. The woman diving off the boat. The conversation between The Protagonist and Priya where he calls her out for lying, but she says she'll have to in order for him to have done what he's done. Neil going back into the bunker at the end so he can save The Protagonist. Even all the talk of The Grandfather Paradox - it's a Paradox, it literally cannot come to pass. They literally cannot lose because otherwise there wouldn't be a future for Sator to come back from.

The Algorithm doesn't matter or even need to be explained, it's literally a McGuffin - the catalyst of the plot. The characters are purposefully two dimensional (though I'd argue Debicki plays one of the more fleshed out Nolan Women). There's a reason Neil is so suave, a reason Branagh hams it up - these are all archetypes, not real people. The film isn't about the characters (the fact that The Protagonist is unnamed is that he's an audience surrogate, being thrown into this world alongside the rest of us).

Really, y'all out there complaining that you don't understand it. What's to understand?

We're seeing it from The Protagonist's POV, which is why it's a little confusing and sometimes you can't hear what people are saying properly; because neither can he! High pressure situation, lots going on, background noise? Gunfire? High adrenalin situation? You try focusing on what people are saying to you - it's hard.

You know the only one we really get any clarity with? Neil.

Hello! Thanks for the prompt! I hope this lives up to expectations x

--

Paradise - or Heaven, if you were into that sort of thing - must be a library with floor to ceiling shelves lined with books in every single language remembered and forgotten. Every story ever told over a campfire, between the half-worlds of sleep and waking, or put to paper and words captured in each one. This library would be all warm dark panelled wood and comfortable leather armchairs gone soft with age and use, with big windows that let in dull sunlight. 

Neil thinks he would like that very much.

It certainly would be a better option than the alternative which was being in a brutal modernist building with humming fluorescent lights, hard plastic chairs and metal shelves that smelled faintly of rust, cramming away at his studies amongst the congregation of end of the semester zombies. Neil rubs the heel of his palms into his eyes hard enough to see stars popping up in the darks of his eyelids. 

He needs more coffee.

“Here.” Neil jumps, eyes blinking rapidly as he looks up to see a smiling stranger placing a paper cup of sweet, sweet bitter nectar. The logo speaks of one of the better establishments on campus and when he wraps his hands around it, he thinks he could cry from the warmth.

“May I sit?” The stranger asks, gesturing to the seat opposite his. Mouth parting, gaping elegantly like a fish, Neil gestures. Yes, please handsome stranger who is dressed in a tailored three-piece suit at 7 in the morning on a Thursday while I look like a drowned raccoon. Please do sit with me.

Neil ducks his head, drinking his coffee. It was the good kind from the good place and his brain has a second to pause to consider. “Are you going to kidnap me? Is there... Did you put something in this?”

The stranger laughs, deep and hush in the quiet. For some unfathomable reason, Neil feels his heart flips and flops at the way the light dances on his brown skin and he finds himself following the amused lips of the man’s lips as it parts to reveal the whites of his teeth. There are crinkles around the man’s eyes and a few streaks of grey in his neatly trimmed beard but none of that tells him who this man was and why he had brought him coffee.

“No, Neil,” The stranger says, reaching into his coat pocket, he pauses. Dark eyes flicker to him for a beat before pulling out a red string. Smiling still, he leans forward and Neil mirrors him. The stranger takes one of Neil’s hands, looping an end of the string around his little finger and the other end around his own.