This article contains major spoilers for Tenet
The fact that you’re reading this article indicates that you watched the entirety of Tenet without understanding precisely who one of the main characters was. There is no shame in that. Maybe you, like many others, struggled with the muffled dialogue. Maybe you popped to the toilet at all the wrong times. Maybe you just weren’t paying attention. It doesn’t matter. This is a judgement-free zone.
In any case, we’re here to answer all of your questions about the secretive, world-saving, scarf-loving special operative.
Who is the actor playing Neil in Tenet?
That’s Robert Pattinson, one of the biggest stars in global cinema. There really is no excuse for not knowing that. This is no longer a judgement-free zone.
Who is Neil in Tenet?
For all he knows, The Protagonist first meets handler Neil, a supposed local and proud owner of a master’s degree in physics, in Mumbai. The mysterious, foppish Brit has been directed to help him in his mission, but the American agent has no idea who recruited him. He asks, but to no avail. Neil soon helps him break into the heavily guarded house of arms dealer Priya (Dimple Kapadia), as well as the freeport in Oslo airport. There, he stops The Protagonist from killing a time-inverted grunt who he gets in a tussle with. Why would he do that, hmm? HMMMMMMM?
Little does The Protagonist know that Neil was the masked gunman who saved him at the very start of the film, when The Protagonist was facing certain death at the opera house. He was wearing a distinctive red string on his back – the same red string that Neil was wearing at the end of the film, after the Tenet team had successfully averted a time-bending apocalypse. Why did Neil stop the The Protagonist from killing the masked gunman in Oslo airport? Because it was a time-inverted version of himself. If he had killed him, it all would have been for nought.
But his contributions don’t stop there. Towards the end of the film, in the Algorithm room, the Protagonist and Ives (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) see a corpse of a masked soldier with the same red string behind a locked gate. As one of Sator’s henchmen attempts to shoot The Protagonist, the masked gunman comes back to life, takes the bullet and lets the good guys through (stopping doomsday in its tracks.)
At the climax of the film Neil decides to go back into battle, and it’s the flash of his red string that reveals to The Protagonist that Neil was in fact the man corpse behind the gate, who had given over his life for the safety of mankind. It was in fact The Protagonist who brought Neil into the Tenet organisation – and founded it to begin with, after killing Priya – and they shared a great friendship for many years, which ended with the culmination of the mission.
Who is Neil Tennant?
Neil Francis Tennant (born 10 July 1954) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, music journalist and co-founder of the synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys, which he formed with Chris Lowe in 1981. But that’s not important right now.
Are there any theories around Neil’s true identity?
Hoo boy, are there. The biggest one is that Neil is in fact a grown up version of Kat's (Elizabeth Debicki) young son Max. Why? Because the French spelling of his name is Maximilien, which when reversed (in true Tenet tradition) reads neil-im-ixam. Conclusive proof, we're sure you agree.
What's more, Pattinson is British (Max is British!), has dyed blonde-ish hair (Max has blonde-ish hair!) and has an expensive education (Max has an expensive education!). Still, Neil doesn't show the kind of warmth or concern for Kat that would suggest this is in any way true. Also, for grown-up Neil to exist in the same moment as young boy Neil, he'd have to have spent something like 15 years travelling backwards in time. Does anyone have that much patience?
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