Thoughts on the Ending of Inception

Thoughts on Inception's Ending

SPOILERS!

I think I've already been clear about this being one of the better movies I've seen in the last year. In this post, I want to talk about the ending. What the hell does happen at the end??

Before I get into that, though, I want to give a special nod to Joseph Gordon Levitt and what I call his Fred Astaire fight. I didn't want to spoil the moment for people who hadn't seen the movie, so I left it out of my last review. But this might have been my favorite moment in the movie - Levitt fighting a security guard while the building is rotating around him. This scene is proof that you don't need crazy special effects and CGI to make an awesome visual statement. This was shot on a rotating set using pretty much the same technique that allowed Fred Astaire to famously and magically tap dance on a ceiling 60 years ago. Sometimes you just need to use an old trick in a new way.

Okay - now to the ending. Once again, I want to warn away anyone who hasn't seen the movie!

What does happen at the end? The finale begins with Cobb landing at the airport. He is met by his father, played by Michael Caine, who takes him home to see his kids. At the house, Cobb quickly spins his totem to make sure he is in reality, but his kids call his name before he sees if the totem falls or not. Finally seeing his children's faces, Cobb runs to embrace them, no longer waiting to see if the totem stops spinning. It doesn't. So what does that mean?

Here are our options.

1) It is a Dream

Right off the bat, there is some strangeness happening. The structure of the ending is certainly more dreamlike, with longer shots, and scene fragments as opposed to whole scenes. Why is Cobb's father at the airport? Wasn't he just in Paris? That's weird. And why are his kids in the exact same position and wearing the exact same clothes as they were in all of Cobb's memories? Because they are only memories. And the whole scene is still in Cobb's deep, deep subconscious - his own personal Limbo. And that totem never stops spinning...


2) It is Real

But then again, the totem is clearly wobbling. It looks like it could fall any minute. Also, about his children - while they look the same and are wearing the same clothes, they are played by different actors who are slightly older than the children in Cobb's dreams. Supposedly, their shoes are different, too. Hmmm....How about the dad? How did he get to Los Angeles? Well, Cobb could have just called his dad and asked that he meet him in Los Angeles. It's filmed strangely, but the Michael Caine's presence at the airport is not impossible.

But the biggest piece of evidence for me goes back to the rules established for the dream world in the beginning - that dreams always start in the middle. The finale clearly has a stark beginning - Cobb waking up on the plane after rescuing Saito from Limbo.

Want another piece of evidence? In the dream world, Cobb is always wearing his wedding ring. In reality, he isn't. Clearly, this is a sign of how he can't let go of Mal (in his subconscious) even though he's been forced to move on with his life in the real world. In the end, as Cobb comes home, he is NOT wearing his wedding ring.


3) Mal was right. The whole movie is a dream.

Now, this one is interesting. What if Cobb's wife, Mal, was right? What if this whole thing is a dream? As she tries to explain to him in the movie on more than one occasion - how realistic is it that Cobb is some sort of James Bond of the Dreamscape, hunting and being hunted by faceless goons with kickbutt weaponry? Sounds pretty far-fetched. And how about the fact that the movie clearly doesn't have a beginning? It starts at the end, and then quickly jumps to the middle with Cobb in mid-heist in Saito's mind. But there is never a beginning. We also have the fact that they are darting all over the world, to varied locations as far away as Paris and Mombasa. There is no explanation as to how they are getting places. The characters just kind of appear there. Another point is that a lot of characters repeat very similar lines throughout the film. Is it a coincidence that Cobb and Saito both talk about making leaps of faith and that these are Mal's last words before killing herself?

Let's not forget the escape scene in Mombasa, where Cobb has to force his way between two walls that are rapidly squeezing in on him; this is a classic paranoid dream.

What about the wedding ring point from # 2 above? Well, that's easy. His subconscious is what was holding onto Mal. Once he let her go in the dream world, he was able to sever that dependence and the ring was no longer necessary as a symbol. That was the past. All that matters now is his children.

4) Nolan

Damn you, Nolan. What are you thinking about? The last possibility is that this whole movie is Nolan's dream - a nice little puzzle box that he has placed the audience into. I would laugh this off, except this is the type of thing Nolan would do. DiCaprio has gone on record saying that he based a lot of his Cobb performance on Nolan. Hmmm...


5) So what do you think, James?

Actually, I think the answer is kind of simple. I know its a cop out, but I don't think Nolan knows. I think he put strong arguments on every side of the issue, to spark debate so he can laugh maniacally at us. What is remarkable about that ending is that you cannot firmly and completely prove one argument over another. And I think that is on purpose.

In all honesty, I don't think the answer really matters to Nolan. In the end, Cobb is reunited with his children. Whether it is real or not, he is happy. That is what matters. The true character arc for Cobb is that in the beginning of the movie, he is paranoid and doubts his existence at every turn. At the end of the movie, he doesn't care. He doesn't wait for the totem to stop spinning. All that matters is that he is with his children again, in whatever way he can be with them. That emotional catharsis is Nolan's happy ending. Does it matter if it is real or not?

But I really want to know what all of you think! Please give me comments below. I want to spark a discussion!!! Do you think the end is real or not???