Inception

I got back from seeing Inception 37 minutes ago, and I’ve been sitting here with a blank canvas in front of me, pondering how to implore you to go and see this film.  I’m not really sure how to do this, because I’ve never been so concerned with spoilers before…

Rather than navigating around the general points of the plot, I will just tell you why it made my heart flutter–  why it opened the gates for a twenty minute conversation with my two best friends in the parking lot of the movie theater; screaming at the top of our lungs, wildly waving our arms in the air, shaking our heads with shock and awe as we discussed the finer points of this masterpiece.

The casting was brilliant.  I simply cannot imagine a more perfect fit than Sir Leonardo DiCaprio for the lead role.  The real surprise, however, came with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page.  They really hold their own against a deck of extremely diverse talent.  The girl inside me wanted a minor love story to unfold between the two of them.

The score of the film had every person in the sold out theater on the edge of their seats.  A great score should be almost forgotten while you are there in the moment, and I was really impressed.  I looked left and then right at the most pivotal point in the movie, and I realized I was in the presence of something rare– every person in that room was completely motionless.  I don’t see action pieces, ever, so I don’t get immersed in suspense too often, but I have to believe that the complexities in this movie will be a cornerstone for DiCaprio and director Christopher Nolan’s career (Even considering Nolan’s The Dark Night).

I believe in humor.  I believe in the power of comic relief, no matter how small, to make a movie well-rounded and bring it back down to the viewer. This movie so eloquently combined drama, thrill, suspense, romance, psychological intrigue, that you would think there would be no room for any lightheartedness–but alas… Four or five times, this movie takes a perfect moment, and subtly, gracefully hands you a moment of humor.  I thought that was the greatest part.  It hurts me to keep these examples in.

I thought seriously about giving away the ending in this next paragraph (with a huge spoiler alert, obviously) in order to share with you a final thought on the way this movie wraps up.  Unfortunately, I really just don’t think I can do that.  Let me get back to you in a month or so…

“Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.”