Entertainment
Christopher Nolan’s 148 Minute Mind Bending Sci-Fi Thriller is Darker Than You Think
With The Odyssey breaking the bank at the box office and getting Oscar buzz, many are praising director Christopher Nolan as one of the best filmmakers working today. After all, he’s given the film world several perfect blockbusters, namely Memento, The Prestige, and of course, the iconic Dark Knight trilogy. Not to mention his most mind-blowing project to date, Inception, which featured a group of thieves invading the human mind to plant an idea into someone’s head.
While Inception was a massive hit both critically and commercially and is still part of the cultural zeitgeist today, many seemed to have missed that the key element of the film’s intricate plot, planting an idea in someone’s mind, has far darker connotations than initially let on. In a film with so much going on, the core emotional trick that the film is pulling got lost.
The Idea of Inception Has a Dark Edge.
The plot of the film revolves around a mysterious but well-connected businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe), who tasks Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) with implanting the idea in the mind of his competitor to dissolve the company his father built. The target, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), has a fractured and complex relationship with his soon-to-be late father, whose last words to his own son were, “Disappointed.” Saito claims that Fischer’s company going under would do good for the world, but it’s hard to trust these words since it comes from a ruthless tycoon.
Nevertheless, Cobb assembles his team to invade Fischer’s subconscious and plant the concept of splitting up his father’s empire. As the team plots the job, they struggle with how to translate the business strategy into a positive emotion for Fischer, with Cobb saying, “Positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time. We yearn for people to be reconciled, for catharsis.”
The team eventually settles on twisting the narrative surrounding Fischer’s relationship with his father, creating the notion that Fischer Sr. wants his son to be his own man and create something for himself. It all sounds good for Fischer and for Cobb and his crew, but the problem is, the catharsis is all a lie.
The Emotional Deception Runs Deep.
The fact remains that Fischer’s father was disappointed in him, and although Cobb’s plan paints a better picture of him, Fischer will go on living for himself under false pretense. While it seems noble to create catharsis for a broken relationship, that will never change the fact that Cobb and company are lying to a man whose fractured family dynamic made him susceptible to the idea that Saito wants him to accept.
There may also be deeper consequences at play here long after the credits roll. Cobb tells Saito at one point, “You asked me for inception, I do hope you understand the gravity of that request. The seed of the idea that we plant in this man’s mind will grow to define him. It may come to change everything about him.” Planting the idea of Fischer not following in his father’s footsteps so deep into his subconscious may drive him to do drastic and dangerous things, as evidenced by what happened to Cobb’s wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) after he performed inception on her.
Worse, Cobb and his crew are so focused on the job that they fail to consider any of the long-reaching consequences of what they’re doing. For Cobb, it makes sense, seeing as all he wants is to go home to his children, but for the noble Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the new recruit Ariadne (Elliot Page), the dark side of the task at hand never comes up for them. Not only that, but they are all taking Saito at his word that their mission is the right thing to do, but since Saito beneifts greatly from the end of the Fischers, he is far from trustworthy.
While Inception has long been high regarded in Nolan’s canon, and still is, it is by far one of his darker tales. Manipulation of the mind is a scary thing and although the film presents this in a unique way, the ideas presented here are unsettling and thought-provoking. The core of Inception is all one big trick, but one that may have devastating effect.
- Release Date
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July 16, 2010
- Runtime
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148 minutes
- Franchise(s)
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Inception
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