Say this about Christopher Nolan: he doesn’t dream small. Having expanded the possibilities of the comic-book adaptation with The Dark Knight - and with the clout that a $1-billion grosser affords - the writer-director is now gambling moviegoers want to be slapped awake from a nightmare loop of sequels, retreads and remakes.
The question is, would they rather stay comatose?
Dangling in the balance is the fate of Nolan’s $150 million harrowing, hallucinatory puzzle-box, Inception, about a dream thief with night terrors. It’s dense, disorienting, crazy-smart, enveloping and engineered to reward multiple viewings. I was spellbound. But for others, Inception will confound, confuse and frustrate.
That early hype describing it as Memento-meets-The Matrix? Frankly, Inception makes those mind-benders seem elementary.
A compellingly grim Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, the aforementioned smooth criminal who, thanks to technology that’s kept captivatingly vague, manipulates the subconscious minds of high-value targets while they’re sleeping. Maneuvering through their dreams, he extracts business secrets for a price. But Cobb isn’t without his own demons. And a recurring one has begun to corrupt his assignments: a stunning, mysterious woman played with exquisitely sad menace by Marion Cotillard.
Clearly, as it’s pointed out, Cobb has issues to resolve. But estranged from his children, on the run from the authorities who believe he’s responsible for a crime, he’s a man haunted and hunted. Possible salvation arrives with his latest client: Saito (Ken Watanabe), a tycoon who offers Cobb a new lease on life if he can implant an idea in the mind of a competitor. This is near-impossible - apparently the mind can distinguish between a self-generated idea and a manufactured one - but the chance to return home is too tempting to refuse, and Cobb gathers a team to help him crack the cranium of a corporate heir played by Cillian Murphy.
There’s suave, stern Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); Yusuf (Dileep Rao), the chemist whose pharmaceuticals kickstart the process; “forger” Eames (Tom Hardy), capable of morphing himself into different guises; and Ariadne (Ellen Page), the recently-recruited “architect,” who constructs the dream with excruciating detail.
Why? Because if a mark’s subconscious realizes it’s being invaded, it counter-attacks, manufacturing raging mobs and militarized assassins. Because she’s new to this, Ariadne also acts as the audience’s surrogate. As Cobb explains how all this works, he’s doing the same for us. Usually this amount of voluminous exposition can be a drain, but the agile, talented Page assimilates it painlessly. And Nolan never feels less than in unwavering command, juggling competing narratives, dizzying sub-sub-consciousnesses and a breathtaking climatic heist that unspools at parallel depths of dream realms. The final half-hour alone is a miracle of clockwork-precise showmanship.
Put it this way: even if you’re utterly baffled, you won’t nod off.
