Inception

Inception reminds me of a song called “The Windmills of Your Mind” which features lyrics about dreams within dreams, building on top of more dreams. And so goes Inception’s plot, which is usually within a dream and debatable about whether any of it is truly happening. Is all of this just a dream within a dream within a dream? Or are we glimpsing into memories? What is the reality of this film’s storyline and structure? Is there any reality?

Inception thrusts us into Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) life and psyche. He is a dream-invader, a man who can break into anyone’s dream and extract important information, or, more rarely, plant an idea. Planting an idea within a dream is where the film draws its title from. He has been hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to implant an idea within Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the son of his chief business rival. That is the main through line, and the rest of it is a combination of high-stakes action, inner-character turmoil and stunningly beautiful visual tricks.

Chris Nolan has patented this kind of brainy action-adventure character drama over the course of the past ten years. His work is solidly constructed from a storytelling point-of-view, even if at times he can get bogged down into expository dialogue and consistent emotional short-hands. (Inception marks yet another film with a dead wife/female character driving the central figure towards his ultimate fate, or as a symbol of his greatest failure/regret. There’s always a dead woman somewhere driving his characters.) But here he finds a good balance, and generally sticks to a solid timeline. His love for nonlinear works severely hampered The Prestige, which featured so many flashbacks within flashbacks so as to glaring point out that these characters wouldn’t have any true access to this information as it is presented. That, and The Prestige tried to pull off a third-act surprise that was sign-posted and neon-blaringly obvious that it derailed the entire film to a sloppy mess. Inception corrects many of those filmmaking mistakes and is instead played out like a chess game. I appreciate his continued effort to make summer movies with brains and hearts. His action set pieces thrill and entice me because they are there for a reason, these characters are characters that I want to spend two hours with and care about what happens to them. He regards us as a generally smart bunch who can keep up with his pyrotechnics, and I’m not talking about the shit-goes-boom-real-pretty-like scenes.

But Nolan is also a smart director when it comes to casting actors. Leonardo DiCaprio has proven time and time again to be either the best actor of his generation, or one who is very close to the top of that list. To think of the great performances he has already given – What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Marvin’s Room, The Aviator – and to see him trying out another genre, another intriguing filmmaker, well, that truly is a cinematic joy to behold. He’s been very smart with his choices, and while some films like Revolutionary Road sounded fantastic on paper and featured great performances but were less than the sum of their parts, he has consistently delivered a level of work that speaks to his excellence in every film. He is no different here, having to juggle guilt, remorse, being an educator and various other strands and ripples within the character. He is equally at home in the dramatic sequences as the action.

But he is not acting in a vacuum. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Cobb’s longtime associate, and he is another candidate for greatest actor of their generation. It’s strange to see him in a movie with an actual budget, but a welcome experience. He is more grounded, the more analytical and practical-minded of the two. Cobb is driven by a desire to see his family, while Arthur thinks of much of it as just business and how can they do it quickly, easily and with as little mess as possible. Tom Hardy gets the showy role as the master of deception. His braggart and snarky demeanor irks Gordon-Levitt’s character to no end. He, obviously, gets the lion’s share of great one-liners. Ellen Page, an actress who always projects intelligence, is Ariadyne, the apprentice architect. Her name provided me a laugh, but I wonder how many other people will get why. I wish she had been given a bit more to do, but it’s nice to see her not type-cast as Juno. Ken Watanabe, always a welcome presence and an underutilized actor, gives typically strong support. As do Cillian Murphy, in a fairly blank role, and Michael Caine, in a too-brief glorified cameo.

But Marion Cotillard once again proves her might as an actress. I have long said that she can express more with her big blue eyes, a stretch of her neck, a downturn of her mouth than most other actresses currently working. She can, she does. She is the dead wife in Cobb’s dream world. She is the nightmare that eternally haunts him and frequently gets loose to destroy his hard work. Cotillard has to be many things – a wild animal, a sensitive and lovingly woman, a symbolic representation of guilt – and she nails each and every one.

And what shall we make of the ending? I have heard and discussed a few different theories, but they all boil down to two distinct camps: it was all a dream or he made it out. I fall into the former camp, but I would actually extend the argument even further and say that the film does contain dreams, and dreams within dreams, but that it’s really all a long sequence of memories. And if you pay close attention to the plot, you’ll hear them discuss memories and how they affect the architecture and characteristics of the dream world. My main proof, aside from the spinning top, is that every time we glimpse his children, even at the very end, they’re in the same position. They’re performing the same tasks, they’re dressed the same. They haven’t noticeably aged. They look the same as he last remembers seeing them. Why would they be in the same spot doing the same thing when he returns to them as he last saw them? What are the chances of this? Food for thought and discussion about the ambiguous ending, a perfect ending really as any true, neat and tidy ending would have rung completely false.