For a storyteller to fully satisfy an audience after promising to bring to life a particular concept, they must include every detail about that concept the audience is already familiar with, remind them of a few things they forgot, and then find a way to wrap all of that into a logical and clever story that touches on those familiar and unfamiliar beats while constantly surprising with the execution. That’s a tall enough order when Pixar is bringing toys to life. With “Inception,” writer/director Christopher Nolan brilliantly pulls this off in previously unconquered territory.
Nolan’s mind-melting triumph is without a doubt the most psychologically ambitious film I’ve ever seen. Previous cinematic attempts to grab hold of and realize the concept of consciously entering the world of dreams have usually focused on the visual (Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”), stuck to very simple rules (“Nightmare on Elm Street”), or fizzled out entirely (‘Dreamscape”) when the boundaries beyond simplicity were nudged. The idea of fully and successfully exploiting a psychological dimension where there are no rules seemed futile. Until now. Leave it to the director of “Memento,” a brilliant neo-noir Rubik’s Cube of a mystery audaciously told backwards, to be the first to successfully crack this genre.
What does the average person know about dreams? Among other things, we know that there can be dreams within dreams within dreams. We know time has no meaning, that we wake before we die or as we fall, and that oftentimes what’s happening, for good or bad, is a reflection of our subconscious fears, desires, and knowledge. Without giving any of the story away, Nolan takes these universally familiar ideas (and many others) and then uses a familiar framing device — The Last Big Heist Before I Get Out — to explore the living hell out of them.
Leonardo DiCaprio is Dom Cobb, a black market Extractor who, for the right price, will invade the dreams of your business rivals and steal their secrets for you. With a bounty on his head and only ever just barely out of reach of those looking to cash in on him, Cobb does what he does for the money, because he’s the very best at it, but also for the narcotic-like connection the technology he uses offers to a life he desperately wants to return to but can’t due to his many legal problems.
As is always this case with the One Last Heist genre, one person who needs something from our protagonist holds the key to everything he wants. Here, it’s a way home for Cobb. The price of the golden ticket, however, is that Cobb must do the impossible, what’s never been before. Both desperate to see his children but also intrigued by the challenge, Cobb bites, assembles a team, puts the plan into place, and then we’re off on a righteous cause to dreamland – inside the many psychological layers that exist within the mind of a powerful businessman.
Like the performances (DiCaprio has finally won me over), the special effects are absolutely flawless and serve the story perfectly. From your own dreams you’re sure to recognize the various visual moods Nolan explores: chaos, the inability to move quickly or escape, moments of inexpressible beauty and how an emotional connection conceived in your dreams can profoundly penetrate your waking reality. Nolan could’ve obviously gone anywhere with this idea but using the conceit of an “architect” (that’s all I’m going to tell you), we’re not subjected to dinosaurs or space aliens or any of that other crazy story-killing nonsense designed to sell the film’s trailer.
Like I mentioned earlier, “Inception” is a triumph and certainly one of the best films you’ll see this year, but until an absolutely exhilarating climax, the intricacies of the plot always feel a little further ahead of you than they should be and even then require an awful lot of exposition for the pieces to finally click into place. Also, the characters and their relationships are surprisingly and unnecessarily clinical. Cobb’s team, which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an efficient fixer, Ellen Page as the “architect,” Tom Hardy as the “forger,” and Dileep Rao as the “chemist” – never gels.
Individually, each character is well-crafted but there’s very little chemistry between them and this causes the second act to be more mechanical and less involving than it should be. From the beginning, Cobb’s personal journey, which involves his wife (Marion Cotillard), promises to give the film a much needed emotional core, but that promise is always just a whisker out of reach until the very end, which, to be fair, is quite moving.
There are reports that “Inception” cost as much as $200 million to produce, and for that we should be thankful to Warner Brothers. Nolan is a once-in-a-generation auteur whose career is just getting started (he’s still a few days shy of 40) and his talent deserves a studio willing to finance it. Because there’s still a little justice in the world, that’s happened with this bold, challenging, slightly imperfect journey into the true final frontier that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
Opening everywhere tomorrow, “Inception” deserves respect and an audience.
UPDATE: Cannot believe I forgot to mention Hans Zimmer’s incredible score, which is almost certain to be nominated for an Academy Award. Though not melodic like the scores of old, it is lush and large and unobtrusive like the scores of old and a vital part of the film’s most effective moments.