Christopher Nolan says Peloton instructor once slammed ‘Tenet’ during a class – and the clip has been unearthed

5 January, 2024

Christopher Nolan has revealed that a Peloton instructor once launched scathing critique of his 2020 film Tenet – and you can now watch a clip of their rant.

The director shared the story on Wednesday (January 3) during his acceptance speech for Best Director at the New York Film Critics Circle award ceremony.

“I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!’” Nolan told the audience, according to Variety.

“When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a shit on your film, he doesn’t ask you to work out!” the British-American filmmaker continued, without disclosing which film the instructor was referring to.

“Directors have a complex emotional relationship with critics and criticism,” he said. “A question we’re always asked is: Do we read reviews? Let’s start with the fact that I’m British. A typical family gathering will involve relatives saying to me, ‘You know, Christopher. You probably shouldn’t open The Guardian today.’

“Obviously, writing about cinema objectively is a paradox, but the aspirations of objectivity is what makes criticism vital and timeless and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community,” he added.

Tenet
Tenet CREDIT: Warner Bros

Nolan went on to highlight the importance of professional film criticism in a time where absolutely anyone can voice an opinion about a movie online.

“In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of idea that film criticism is being democratised,” he said, “but I for one think the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct but it should be a profession.”

The following day (4 January), a Peloton user uploaded a clip of the instructor’s rant to the fitness brand’s official Facebook page.

According to journalist Samantha Cole, instructor Jenn Sherman voiced her criticism of Tenet during a 30-minute “intervals and arms” virtual class on December 28, 2020.

In the clip, Sherman rants: “This song is from a soundtrack of a movie called Tenet.” The song is ‘The Plan’ by Travis Scott. “Anybody see this shit? Did anybody see this besides me? Because I need a manual. Someone’s got to explain this.

‘Yeah I’m not kidding, what the fuck was going on in that movie? Do you understand? Seriously you need to be a neuroscientist to understand. And that’s two and a half hours of my life I want back. I want it back.”

Nolan won the New York Film Critic Circle’s directing award for his latest film, Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy as the “father of the atomic bomb” J Robert Oppenheimer.

Back in November, he also urged fans to buy Oppenheimer on Blu-ray “so no evil streaming service can come and steal it from you”.

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