Keepin' it Simple, Keepin' it Real: Inception

There's been a horrendous amount of bandwidth devoted to attempting to explain Inception, writer/director Christopher Nolan's most recent feature film. Virtual pissing contests to determine who "gets" the film best are running rampant, and even high-profile critics like Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman have written blog posts about how the film is so confusing and they just don't understand it, generously inviting heaps of responses in the comment section to the effect of what idiots they are.

I don't think not understanding Inception makes you an idiot. I do suspect it makes you someone who's determined to over-think things, or who just wasn't paying attention to the first hour and a half. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, and featuring Tom Berenger and Cilian Murphy, Inception is, put simply, probably the best heist film you'll ever see.

What? A heist film? But I thought it was a high-concept sci-fi something-or-other!

Well, yes and no. Inception is a heist film through and through, using the classic story of a broken master ne'er-do-well (DiCaprio's Dominic Cobb) going in for that one last job whose reward will help him get his life back on track, and get him out of the business for good. This being a classic heist, the job is shadier and riskier than usual. The film's first act sees Cobb assemble his team and explain the nature of the job to the audience; the second act begins with all the team's well-laid plains going quickly SNAFU; the third act pushes their problem-solving skills to the limit in order to get the job done and make it out alive. It's the setting that shoehorns Inception into the high-concept stratosphere - Cobb's not-quite-legal business is "subconscious security", that is, teaching (mostly corporate) clients how to prevent company secrets and intellectual property from being stolen right out of their dreams. And dreams are strange, nebulous, confusing things, which seems to be the starting point for much of the confusion surrounding this film.

The thing is, Nolan meticulously uses the first half of this nearly three-hour production for the purpose of explaining how dreams work, what the rules of his world are, what the story is about, and what to expect once the action starts. It is this careful explanation that makes that first half noticeably slower and clunkier than the films written by or with his brother Jonathan (such as The Prestige and the recent Batman films), but it's worth sitting and sifting through.

Most importantly, Nolan goes to great pains to repeatedly explain the final frame of the film long before the audience gets there. Don't be fooled by the reams of "what does the end mean????" floating around in cyberspace - its simply the culmination of the film's firmly-developed themes. Inception may be confusing to some because its anti-anarchist, anti-cyberpunk, anti-Animatrix story is not one I've seen before in a film dealing with dreams and reality. Simply put, its themes are as follows: there is such a thing as reality, there is such a thing as truth, and running away into your dreams is unhealthy, and a terrible solution to the hardships of real life. Reality and truth are good. These are not welcome ideas to the subculture that worships the Wachowski brothers. Also important thematically is the recurring question of what Inception's characters put more trust in: what they know, or what they believe. Mixed into a simple, straightforward heist film are some simple-but-complex philosophies, and I for one think Nolan did a fantastic job of mixing them. Also, it's just extremely pleasant to watch a straightforward story told very well. Inception doesn't so much have twists, because a well-told story doesn't need them.

In other words, if you've been put off of watching Inception because you've been given the idea that it's some incomprehensible piece of artsy-fartsy-sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo, I think you've been given the wrong idea. See it for the fabulous acting, mind-blowing art direction and cinematography, the interesting and important philosophical challenges, and the scene that, in my mind, serves to justify the existence and purpose of wire-work. It really is that good, that simple, and that comprehensible.