Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao
Running Time: 148 minutes (plus trailers)
"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."
Fresh off the heels of the wildly successful and critically beloved superhero film The Dark Knight, British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan crafts a complicated, exciting, original and at times genuinely awe-inspiring science fiction thriller called Inception. Centred around a group of thieves who enter a man’s subconscious in order to plant an idea deep within the recesses of his mind, the movie deals with notions of reality and perception with an intelligence rarely seen in big budget action pictures, while at the same time more than delivering on all the thrills that mainstream audiences demand. Given that Nolan directed not one but two of my all times favourite films, it is fair to say that my expectations for Inception were fairly high; the fact that he able to once again surpass everything I could have hoped for cements him as one of the most talented and ambitious minds working in the entertainment industry today.
Even excluding Inception, there are only a handful of directors with a filmography as impressive as Nolan’s. His debut film was the low-budget thriller Following, a movie that set the groundwork for almost all his later films, both in its fascinating non-linear script and in the obsessive characters that it documented. He perfected these themes with his first masterpiece, the critically acclaimed cult film Memento, often referred to as “the film told backwards”. After a remake of a Norwegian thriller called Insomnia, Nolan journeyed into big budget film-making with a reboot of the Batman franchise, bringing his dark, psychological rooted storytelling to the mythos of the capped crusader. The second film of this planned trilogy, separated by another engaging brainteaser in The Prestige, was The Dark Knight, one of the most critically beloved (not to mention profitable) blockbusters of all time. With Inception, Nolan has combined the intellectual complexity of his smaller works with the commercial appeal of the Batman franchise to create one of the most wholly unique pieces of Hollywood cinema in years.
Inception is an entry into a small subgenre of science fiction films that I would designate “science fiction of the mind”; a subgenre shared by other great films such The Matrix, Dark City and Total Recall. The influences of all of these stories can certainly be seen in Nolan’s film, but just as we have come to expect, he pushes the concepts they introduced to their mind-bending limits. As characters dive deeper and deeper into their own subconscious brains, the director builds a devilishly complicated maze of dreams within dreams. This is not a film that you can watch passively; Nolan demands a lot of his audience, but as a result the reward is far more satisfying than your typical summer blockbuster. And Nolan is sure to counter the more cerebral moments with wonderfully imaginative and electrifying action beats. The films core concept – the world of the dream – allows for chase and fight sequences set in all kinds of environments, in places where the laws of physics do not necessarily apply.
What’s more, just as he incorporates the perfect amount of action, Nolan never allows the complexity of the story to overpower its emotional core. If there is one complaint I have of Nolan’s films, it is that the human emotion is sometimes sacrificed to the enigma of the script. When compared to the twisting paths of his earlier movies like Memento and The Prestige, Inception is relatively straightforward, but the way in which Nolan incorporates recurring elements into this script is masterful on a whole other level. Lines of dialogue repeat throughout the film, and each time they gain new meaning and significance. Likewise, recurring imagery and objects – for example, a train, a pinwheel or a spinning top – allow for some superb emotional payoffs. The three core relationships in the film, between a husband and wife, father and son and most potently, a parent and his two children, are all given powerful moments of catharsis, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that many of them take place only within a dream.
It is the balancing of these three facets that makes Inception such a phenomenal film. To be fair, it is not quite my favourite Nolan film – it doesn’t have the epic character drama of The Dark Knight, nor does is it match the frustrating brain-tease of Memento. Never the less, after three viewings I can confidently say that it is the film that best demonstrates why Nolan is my all time favourite writer and director. This man has always set himself apart through his screenplays, and this script blends action, emotion and conundrum with a skill that I don’t think has ever been seen before. This also feels like Nolan’s most personal movie – it is his first film since Following that is not based on a previously existing story, and reportedly he wrote the first draft of the screenplay more than a decade ago. A film that provide both effective emotional moments and first rate action is rare enough; that Inception does both without ever dumbing down it’s script is nothing short of extraordinary.
Of course Inception doesn’t succeed solely because of Nolan. The A-list cast is unanimously fantastic, (although I can’t help but feel that DiCaprio played essentially the same role slightly better in Shutter Island earlier in the year). Due to the inherently ensemble nature of a heist film, a lot of the movies ancillary character don’t get enormous attention, but so strong are the performances that the movie doesn’t really suffer for it. Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt continue to prove themselves as some of the best young actors around, and British actor Tom Hardy, after wowing critics last year with his mind-blowing turn in Bronson, is now given the opportunity to amaze general audiences as well. Marion Cotillard is dark and disturbing as DiCaprio deranged wife, and I also thought the Cillian Murphy was terrific as a character whose allegiances shift depending on the level of the dream he finds himself in – yet another fascinating dimension to Nolan’s screenplay.
On a technical level, Inception is equally brilliant. With such an outlandish and dreamlike premise at its core, it would have been frightfully easy to resort to scene after scene of distracting CGI, but instead Nolan utilizes practical effects wherever possible – and anyone who has seen the films already beloved corridor fight scene can speak to the success of this decision. These is no point in this film where the special effects overwhelm the action, offering yet another reason why Inception stands out above almost any big budget film of the digital moviemaking era. The cinematography by Wally Pfister is gorgeous, and the movies utilization of slow motion photography is effective and beautiful without ever being gratuitous. Finally, Hans Zimmer somehow manages to top his work on The Dark Knight, providing one of the strongest scores of his extensive career. This magnificent soundtrack moves from bombastic to thrilling to touching at a moment’s notices, and adds an additional intensity to whatever scene it accompanies.
Before I conclude, I will say that Inception is not quite a perfect puzzle. Like most films this convoluted, it can be picked at and prodded until the flaws and logical problems are revealed, and if you’re friends are anything like mine, you’ve probably had several conversations in which you do just that. But to be honest, that might be one of the best things about the film. This is not just a movie people are dying to see, but one they are dying to talk about afterwards. In my eighteen months of writing about films, I have never participated in so many debates and arguments, seen so many Facebook statuses, tweets and blog posts, than I have about this movie. Does it make sense? Does it all fit together? And that ending…my god, that ending! Nolan’s greatest triumph is that he has managed to create a crowd-pleasing action sci-fi thriller with genuine emotional peaks that is also complex enough that it forces everyday moviegoers to use their brains. And even better, that seems to be why people love it.
Inception is in cinemas now
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao
Running Time: 148 minutes (plus trailers)
"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."
Fresh off the heels of the wildly successful and critically beloved superhero film The Dark Knight, British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan crafts a complicated, exciting, original and at times genuinely awe-inspiring science fiction thriller called Inception. Centred around a group of thieves who enter a man’s subconscious in order to plant an idea deep within the recesses of his mind, the movie deals with notions of reality and perception with an intelligence rarely seen in big budget action pictures, while at the same time more than delivering on all the thrills that mainstream audiences demand. Given that Nolan directed not one but two of my all times favourite films, it is fair to say that my expectations for Inception were fairly high; the fact that he able to once again surpass everything I could have hoped for cements him as one of the most talented and ambitious minds working in the entertainment industry today.Even excluding Inception, there are only a handful of directors with a filmography as impressive as Nolan’s. His debut film was the low-budget thriller Following, a movie that set the groundwork for almost all his later films, both in its fascinating non-linear script and in the obsessive characters that it documented. He perfected these themes with his first masterpiece, the critically acclaimed cult film Memento, often referred to as “the film told backwards”. After a remake of a Norwegian thriller called Insomnia, Nolan journeyed into big budget film-making with a reboot of the Batman franchise, bringing his dark, psychological rooted storytelling to the mythos of the capped crusader. The second film of this planned trilogy, separated by another engaging brainteaser in The Prestige, was The Dark Knight, one of the most critically beloved (not to mention profitable) blockbusters of all time. With Inception, Nolan has combined the intellectual complexity of his smaller works with the commercial appeal of the Batman franchise to create one of the most wholly unique pieces of Hollywood cinema in years.Inception is an entry into a small subgenre of science fiction films that I would designate “science fiction of the mind”; a subgenre shared by other great films such The Matrix, Dark City and Total Recall. The influences of all of these stories can certainly be seen in Nolan’s film, but just as we have come to expect, he pushes the concepts they introduced to their mind-bending limits. As characters dive deeper and deeper into their own subconscious brains, the director builds a devilishly complicated maze of dreams within dreams. This is not a film that you can watch passively; Nolan demands a lot of his audience, but as a result the reward is far more satisfying than your typical summer blockbuster. And Nolan is sure to counter the more cerebral moments with wonderfully imaginative and electrifying action beats. The films core concept – the world of the dream – allows for chase and fight sequences set in all kinds of environments, in places where the laws of physics do not necessarily apply.What’s more, just as he incorporates the perfect amount of action, Nolan never allows the complexity of the story to overpower its emotional core. If there is one complaint I have of Nolan’s films, it is that the human emotion is sometimes sacrificed to the enigma of the script. When compared to the twisting paths of his earlier movies like Memento and The Prestige, Inception is relatively straightforward, but the way in which Nolan incorporates recurring elements into this script is masterful on a whole other level. Lines of dialogue repeat throughout the film, and each time they gain new meaning and significance. Likewise, recurring imagery and objects – for example, a train, a pinwheel or a spinning top – allow for some superb emotional payoffs. The three core relationships in the film, between a husband and wife, father and son and most potently, a parent and his two children, are all given powerful moments of catharsis, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that many of them take place only within a dream.It is the balancing of these three facets that makes Inception such a phenomenal film. To be fair, it is not quite my favourite Nolan film – it doesn’t have the epic character drama of The Dark Knight, nor does is it match the frustrating brain-tease of Memento. Never the less, after three viewings I can confidently say that it is the film that best demonstrates why Nolan is my all time favourite writer and director. This man has always set himself apart through his screenplays, and this script blends action, emotion and conundrum with a skill that I don’t think has ever been seen before. This also feels like Nolan’s most personal movie – it is his first film since Following that is not based on a previously existing story, and reportedly he wrote the first draft of the screenplay more than a decade ago. A film that provide both effective emotional moments and first rate action is rare enough; that Inception does both without ever dumbing down it’s script is nothing short of extraordinary.Of course Inception doesn’t succeed solely because of Nolan. The A-list cast is unanimously fantastic, (although I can’t help but feel that DiCaprio played essentially the same role slightly better in Shutter Island earlier in the year). Due to the inherently ensemble nature of a heist film, a lot of the movies ancillary character don’t get enormous attention, but so strong are the performances that the movie doesn’t really suffer for it. Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt continue to prove themselves as some of the best young actors around, and British actor Tom Hardy, after wowing critics last year with his mind-blowing turn in Bronson, is now given the opportunity to amaze general audiences as well. Marion Cotillard is dark and disturbing as DiCaprio deranged wife, and I also thought the Cillian Murphy was terrific as a character whose allegiances shift depending on the level of the dream he finds himself in – yet another fascinating dimension to Nolan’s screenplay.On a technical level, Inception is equally brilliant. With such an outlandish and dreamlike premise at its core, it would have been frightfully easy to resort to scene after scene of distracting CGI, but instead Nolan utilizes practical effects wherever possible – and anyone who has seen the films already beloved corridor fight scene can speak to the success of this decision. These is no point in this film where the special effects overwhelm the action, offering yet another reason why Inception stands out above almost any big budget film of the digital moviemaking era. The cinematography by Wally Pfister is gorgeous, and the movies utilization of slow motion photography is effective and beautiful without ever being gratuitous. Finally, Hans Zimmer somehow manages to top his work on The Dark Knight, providing one of the strongest scores of his extensive career. This magnificent soundtrack moves from bombastic to thrilling to touching at a moment’s notices, and adds an additional intensity to whatever scene it accompanies.Before I conclude, I will say that Inception is not quite a perfect puzzle. Like most films this convoluted, it can be picked at and prodded until the flaws and logical problems are revealed, and if you’re friends are anything like mine, you’ve probably had several conversations in which you do just that. But to be honest, that might be one of the best things about the film. This is not just a movie people are dying to see, but one they are dying to talk about afterwards. In my eighteen months of writing about films, I have never participated in so many debates and arguments, seen so many Facebook statuses, tweets and blog posts, than I have about this movie. Does it make sense? Does it all fit together? And that ending…my god, that ending! Nolan’s greatest triumph is that he has managed to create a crowd-pleasing action sci-fi thriller with genuine emotional peaks that is also complex enough that it forces everyday moviegoers to use their brains. And even better, that seems to be why people love it.
Inception is in cinemas now
