Inception (2010)
Inception (2010)
8.8/10
Inception is a considerable achievement in storytelling. Writer and director Christopher Nolan has become a filmmaker whose strength is structure. Whether it is by tinkering with the very format of screenwriting, manipulating the audience by withholding key information or exploring a concept that allows for an unconventionally complex execution, Nolan is first and foremost a storyteller. He is a master at well-timed reveals and navigating through the purposeful deception of his writing. Through excruciatingly careful construction, Inception functions to satisfy casual filmgoers and cinephiles’ alike.
However, the film has a major flaw; it is populated with almost non-characters who either serve as literal storytelling devices and/or necessary functions towards the plot. Even the core emotional arc of Cobb is a bit flimsy. Inception is so ambitious with Nolan set on his logical ideas and conceptual rules that he seems unable to allow this world to be populated by actual characters for fear they might complicate the story and disrupt his lofty goal. Cobb’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) issues and Fischer’s (Cillian Murphy) relationship with his father are the sole allowances’ for actual characterization. These allowances clearly fill all the status quo Nolan desires. There will be more on this later. This sounds like a major flaw and it is. However, Inception is brilliant at what it is doing as a piece of purely plot-driven and conceptual storytelling. To make me forget I exist outside of the film, to be solely consuming the art in front of me, unaware of time or anything else for two and a half hours (at midnight no less) is a rare feat. It is so self-assured, well thought out and confident at what it has set out to be; relentlessly and aggressively entertaining. Its success almost fully compensates for its lack of characterization as it manages to present us with an all encompassing film going experience that is not often found.
The basic set-up of the plot is this; set in an unspecified time, spies now have the ability to infiltrate dreams in order to extract ideas from a ‘mark’ for various reasons. Cobb is working in order to get back home to his children. He cannot go back to the States for reasons we later learn. A client Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants to perform inception rather than extraction. Inception involves the unpracticed task of implanting an idea into the mark’s head. Saito explains that if he manages to perform this job successfully he will make sure he is allowed back into the States. The mark is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) whose father recently passed away, making him the heir of a major corporation. Saito wants Cobb to perform inception in order to convince Fischer to dismantle the empire saving Saito's corporation. Cobb has a team of experts including his right hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), forger Eames (Bronson’s Tom Hardy), architect Ariadne (Ellen Page) and chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao). However, there is a dangerous wrench being thrown into Cobb and his team’s work. Cobb’s subconscious guilt keeps presenting itself during his jobs’ in the form of his deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard). As Mal continuously shows up to destroy Cobb, he increasingly puts himself and his coworkers in danger, making it difficult to get the job done.
Christopher Nolan has made a film that functions simultaneously on two levels making it accessible for everyone while at the same time making it a necessarily active viewing experience. The ingenious aspect of the film is that at its core, the concept is very simple. On the other hand, the logic and rules behind it make everything very complicated. This makes the film easy to follow in the general sense and difficult to follow in the more complex sense, making it accessible to everyone on whichever level they choose to comprehend the story. The success is that it works both ways.
Some people are complaining that the film is incoherent. This is utter nonsense and these people are missing the point. This film is not going to be fully understood by anybody on a first viewing. This is not because the film is ambiguous but rather because the film is loaded with exposition and explanation so much so that it will take more than one viewing to fully comprehend and keep track of the world we are shown. Nolan has painstakingly made sure that every single possible problem or plot hole is addressed. With the knowledge that this was written over the course of ten years in addition to the assumed concern this was being made for a summer blockbuster audience, one can only imagine how many rewrites and changes were made to this screenplay so that it does make sense. Since the film is so carefully thought out but hard to entirely keep track of seeing it the first time, Inception is abundantly re-watchable.
The film is perfectly designed to reel the audience in from the first minutes and its overall structure is quite brilliant and is Inception’s primary achievement. The film’s first sequence throws us head-first into an extraction. Here, we get a vague sense of how extraction and dream infiltration works. Everything will be outright explained for us later but smartly, we are shown rather than told first as the audience watches with wonder as a new world is introduced to us with reveals populating every minute. The film’s beginning and end are the only points where it becomes vague, making effective bookends for the enormity of logic, clarity and exposition to be found in the middle.
The film can be divided into four sections. The vague and riveting introduction makes up the first. The second section is entirely exposition. Ellen Page's Ariadne is brought in as a new recruit to replace former architect Nash (Lukas Haas). She is the audience’s surrogate as her introduction into the world mirrors our own. The introduction and the preparation for the job make up the remainder of the second part. Both are exposition with the first being necessary explanation and the second simultaneously functioning as preparation for the third section. The second section is longer than the first, and the third is longer than the second and it depicts the actual job of infiltrating Fischer’s dreams. It is then comprised of a dream within a dream within a dream; three layers each with a different purpose furthering Cobb and his team towards their goal of inception. What Nolan has done is to take the time to explain everything so that by the time the third section arrives, we are ready to follow what he presents to us. The structure is a precise and significant achievement in screenwriting. The film’s fourth section is the ambiguous final five minutes.
Dreams are inherently character driven, to link it to film terminology. They are directly linked with the psychology of people. Through them, our subconscious emerges, meaningless details shine through and our mind combines our individual desires, fears, deep-seeded issues and random details to create a truly “character-driven” nightly experience whether we remember it or not. Dreams being so essentially linked to psychology would lead to the assumption that Inception is somewhat character driven at least in the sense that the psychological aspect would be used to some degree to really explore the mind in a way that develops character. Nolan goes the complete opposite route and uses dreams to construct a complex world with an extraction and inception process favoring in every way plot over character. Inception did not need to be a character study as it is a film with a 200 million dollar budget but it is disappointing that there was little effort or success at finding a semblance of balance. The film is such exceptionally entertaining storytelling that it largely makes up for it. Still; it is worth going further into.
As was said before, Nolan has consciously allotted a specific and limited devotion to character development. Cobb’s back story and subsequent guilt over the death of Mal are the main services to this function. Learning the full explanation of Cobb’s guilt is admittedly emotionally satisfying if not truly moving. The reason for this is because Nolan has defined Cobb through his issues without giving him anything in addition to them. As a character outside of his guilt over Mal, he barely has any discernable traits. He is determined and that is about it. DiCaprio has a very basic trajectory to work with and he certainly gets the job done even if it does not allow him to be playing a fully developed character.
The other attempt at characterization is in the form of Fischer whom, for my money, is more developed than Cobb. His dreams are being infiltrated, thus his father issues are central to the plot. While Fischer’s development, as well as Cobb’s serves the plot there are other successful elements to the portrayal of Fischer. We get a better sense of him through his dialogue within different situations. Seeing how he reacts to being kidnapped, to speaking with Eames in the guise of his Uncle Peter (Tom Berenger), being approached by Cobb posing as sub-security and more gives us a more complete sense of him easily making Fischer the best-rounded character in the film. Cillian Murphy certainly has a large contribution to this as well giving a subtly impressive performance.
The other characters serve as mere plot devices which is a shame as Inception features mostly actors whom I consider to be among my very favorites. Ariadne is given a bit too much to do making her the surrogate for the audience not only as an introduction to the world within the film but as a persistent inquirer into Cobb’s past. She immediately senses the magnitude of Cobb’s guilt and wants to fully understand how potentially dangerous she is to their mission. This job should have been given to Arthur whose only real trait is that he is by-the-book. Not only would it have made sense if Arthur, his longtime right hand man finally enquired further about this very apparent issue but it would have relieved Ellen Page of some of her expositional dialogue. It is unfortunate that she is only there to ask questions as she is obviously capable of handling a lot more. In addition to Ariadne and Arthur, Eames is wisecracking and provides the films’ only comic relief and Yusuf makes really strong sedatives.
Marion Cotillard has the toughest job and gives the best performance in the film along with Murphy. She has to both portray Mal as a representation of the actual woman and as a literal representation of Cobb’s subconscious. This is tough to pull off and Cotillard does a great job making her intriguing, dangerous and desperately sad. Again though, she is a plot device and ultimately further illustrates the films lack of actual characters’. Having said all this, Christopher Nolan made a conscious decision to sacrifice character for plot and the substitution is essentially worth it.
The film’s visuals are powerful and subtle at the same time. Nolan and cinematographer Wally Pfister are less concerned with framing and more concerned with what is within the frame. This gives us many images that stay with the viewer through the almost abstract creativity of the image and the subtle use of CGI and other modes of special effects. Visually the film is rich and consistently intriguing. The action sequences are as well done as they are correctly placed. The film is PG-13 and replaces explicit violence with the forcefully and realistically repeated image of bodies being toppled whether it be from being hit by a car or from an avalanche or from skiing into things. Through this action and sound effects, the impact is felt and will give continuous jolts to those watching. The highlight of the action sequences is easily the gravity defying showdown with Joseph Gordon-Levitt at its center. This scene is worth the price of admission alone.
Hans Zimmer, in a score tonally reminiscent to Nolan’s previous feature, The Dark Knight is pitch-perfect. It is always present and very much in-your-face but it works because it largely contributes to the film’s constant forward motion. There is little chance to take a relaxing breath while watching and the flow of the film is in large part to Zimmer’s score which makes sure intensity never lets up.
Does Inception have a lot to say? Seemingly no, although I admit to judging far too early. I am not sure I buy that Christopher Nolan has any big statement to make here outside of a broad exploration of the nature of dreams. The fact that a two and a half hour film about dreams failed to delve deep into any characters seems to represent that statement. Then again, just as seeing it more than once is necessary to catch all of the plot elements; it might take many viewing to truly understand what Nolan is doing. However, as I keep stating, Inception is a perfectly told story. As the depiction of an individual filmic world, of events taking place, and as a conceptual work perfectly executed, and once again, as a piece of storytelling through the medium of cinema (most impressively in the screenplay’s structure), Inception is a rare treat. In these aspects and others including as mentioned before, the use of the score, the subtle visuals, the relentless pacing, it is a wonder. It may not deliver in all the ways I was hoping but to view it as the true and specific achievement it is as a one of the most richly entertaining pieces of storytelling yet to be made, it ultimately holds all the satisfaction one could want.
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Seems we share a very similar verdict on this one.
From my own review:
"Inception is a smartly scripted, visually astonishing accomplishment that reminds not all bigscreen behemoths need to be dumbed down adaptations of existing works. Constructed with eye of the needle care and calculated pacing the film’s delicate stealth seeps originality taking an intangible truth and manipulating it to maximum effect.
Compelling and riveting, Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) proves once more he is a consummate storyteller. Focused and avoiding the pitfalls of over complicating a simple “idea” to deliver complex, intellectually stimulating entertainment that never plummets into incoherence. An architect of the cerebral cortex, instead of a frustrating paradox of riddles the film is a fluid exercise in the tapestry of structure."
To read the whole review click HERE if your interested.
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I actually found the emotional arc with Leo quite effective.
Great hefty review though!
see mine by clicking here.