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This is a very good film, but I say so with reservations. First, in true Memento style, let me start with the ending: There's one obvious reference point here, and the moment someone says it you know how it all ends, so let's get it out of the way: Solaris. I suppose a movie about dreams within dreams within dreams can't not end with it being a dream, but the audience I saw it with was hissing in true Barmy fashion. I didn't mind it per se, as I sort of figured it was headed there, but it seemed that with so many good ideas floating around, Nolan could have done something more surprising.

It's the surprises that make the film such a treat, and my dedicated effort from avoiding spoilers, reviews, and even everything after the teaser trailer made the unfolding of the plot that much more rewarding. On a suspense level, the film has a lot of fun with the differences in time between the levels, and I definitely enjoyed the thirty minute van freefall a lot more than some others in the audience did, as it was getting giggles near the end-- probably another sign that this isn't going to recoup. I tire of special effects, but there's some good work here, especially all the stuff with Levitt floating around the hotel room. His corralling solution was both clever and visually arresting-- it is just so nice to occasionally see something new in a film! The budget was definitely put to good effect in these scenes, and the film has enough slow-mo to give Zak Snyder a hard-on for days (but of course the slow-mo works here).

This is certainly not an actorly movie, but Ellen Page is probably the strongest thing here. But that's as much due to her being consistently good on-screen as it is her character being the "outsider," and thus slightly-more fleshed out than the other action movie ciphers she's operating with. I liked the idea of Cotillard infiltrating the dreams and messing up the schemes, but I thought it was an underutilized device. Her backstory is appropriately chilling in its implications and is so strong because the film never really sells the dangers of the fooling around in dreams outside of this instance. When the twist comes halfway through the film that there's actual mortal risk, everyone seems pretty nonplussed and remain action-figures, whereas wouldn't it have been more fun to see them fumble a little, get nervous, make mistakes and then work their way out of that?

DominoHarvey wrote:This is a very good film, but I say so with reservations. First, in true Memento style, let me start with the ending: There's one obvious reference point here, and the moment someone says it you know how it all ends, so let's get it out of the way: Solaris. I suppose a movie about dreams within dreams within dreams can't not end with it being a dream, but the audience I saw it with was hissing in true Barmy fashion. I didn't mind it per se, as I sort of figured it was headed there, but it seemed that with so many good ideas floating around, Nolan could have done something more surprising.

I don't know how cut-and-dried the dream conclusion was supposed to be. I mean, I thought and still think the ending was a dream, but the camera lingers on the spinning bauble and right before the cut the trinket gives a little wobble like it might be winding down. So I think the movie might lean slightly more towards the ending of eXistenZ than Solaris, tho' only slightly, making you think it might be a dream while planting the lingering suggestion that it might not (rather the opposite of the usual).

My favourite aspect of the ending is the way the movie confuses dream mechanics and film mechanics, like how dream ellipses and editorial ellipses converge and make you wonder whether the jumps between places are mechanical or meant to mean something. Pretty sure it's a dream, but the film encourages you to scrutinize its own construction for an answer (tho' it also tosses in more obvious elements for those not inclined towards scrutiny, elements like Michael Caine curiously showing up). Lovely, too, is how the action movie convention of the happy ending is also conflated with the wish-fulfillment of dreams, forcing you to scrutinize movie convention as you did formal convention in order to figure out what is "fantasy." I'm not saying this is a film about filmmaking, just that the end encourages you to scrutinize film techniques and conventions in order to complete the puzzle. Or at least, it did so with me.

I don't think the movie has the emotional resonance of either The Prestige or Memento, Nolan's best films, nor is it as ingeniously constructed as those two; but it is a really novel approach to the actrion/adventure genre, much superior to the straightforward Batman films, especially in how it constructs suspense out of the possible reverberations between different levels of reality. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that makes the details of separate but simultaneously occuring action sequences directly affect the outcome of each other. The heavy degree of causality between all of the action sequences--each one has a specific goal and each one affects every other one in both major and minor ways--means not a single action sequence is superfluous even when so many of them occur. I just wish the execution was as good as the conception: the editing is too frantic, as it tends to be in Nolan's films. You really feel it when you finally get that stunning unbroken sequence with Gordon-Levitt wrestling that guy up-and-down the walls as contrast. I wish more of the action was similarly filmed.

The casting choices really help overcome the somewhat underwritten characters, especially in the case of Gordon-Levitt and Page. Neither felt like they were making conventional acting choices. The sequence where we're told all the rules of the dream world via explanation of what we're actually observing as Page and Dicaprio walk around the city was marvelous. Not only did it solve the problem of how to avoid bogging down the movie with exposition, but it was a marvelous sequence of discovery, watching as a world is folded in on top of itself and replicated through endless mirrors, feeling that slight nervousness of things being not quite right and people looking funny at you (love how the movie toys with a conjunction between dreams/fantasy and persecution mania). It's very skillfull how the sequence brings you inside Page's point-of-view, allowing you to experience the moment through a character rather than as a dispassionate spectator. Probably why her character felt the most well-rounded (as Domino said), you're both seeing this for the first time together. Best scene in the film.

I doubt you'll find a more inventive blockbuster this summer.

I too think the French restructuring sequence is among the best parts of the film, particularly as you said because it works best at presenting this fantastic idea in a way that allows the audience to be in on the wonder. But another reason it is so successful is because it begins Page's push-back against DiCaprio. In any other film, this character would have blithely accepted every rule and decree he deigns to tell her, but she constantly prods him: "Why" "How come" "Well, I'm gonna try anyway" &c-- Her dive down to the basement in the elevator says a lot about her character's headstrong tendencies (I see now the film's being decried for being "for boys," but the strongest character is a woman... hmm, might want to rethink that one, lazy critics) while at the same time being a little unnerving: she's invading his personal memories before she has any justification (such as the self-preservation instinct later in the film) in what came off to me as a kind of mental rape. Note too that she's the only one who asks, in the middle of a shoot-out no less, if they're actually erasing parts of the Murphy's memory by participating in the shoot-out-- I didn't find his reassurance too reassuring, either!

As for the ending, I agree that the film cut at the end does leave some lingering doubt, and on the Caine tip, recall that DiCaprio gives him gifts to pass along to the children, so there must have been some expectation that Caine would see the children soon, who live in America. So while his being there is odd, it is within the realm of plausibility as defined by the film. What makes me doubt my own instincts more than anything is that DiCaprio is finally able to see the faces of his children, which goes against their appearances earlier, in either memory or dreams. Perhaps if it is a dream, there is something to be said for DiCaprio's happiness as evidenced by this change? And more importantly, in which reality is he dreaming from?

domino harvey wrote:What makes me doubt my own instincts more than anything is that DiCaprio is finally able to see the faces of his children, which goes against their appearances earlier, in either memory or dreams. Perhaps if it is a dream, there is something to be said for the DiCaprio's happiness regardless?

But he was always able to reconstruct their faces. In his final scene with faux-Moll she tries to make him do just that, to turn them around and see their faces, or his construction of their faces anyway, and he scruntches his eyes shut as tho' that would be the thing to make him finally give up on real life. So that final moment could be either, A. a sign of reality or B. a sign of surrender (I lean to the latter if only because the position and framing of the kids ritualistically repeats the position and framing they always seem to be in). I suspect one will never find an answer: it's a twist of the screw. Or a matter of belief, as the movie continually reminds us.

Funny, I thought her name was "Moll" too (like Flanders), but IMDB tells me it's actually "Mal," which of course is French for "evil"...

domino harvey wrote:Funny, I thought her name was "Moll" too (like Flanders), but IMDB tells me it's actually "Mal," which of course is French for "evil"...

Yeah, I guess that makes more sense than "prostitute."

Also, I take back my comment about underwritten roles, at least for Page's character. Your paragraph reminded me how subtley her character and personality was revealed, contra the more obvious beats of DiCaprio's character. I was sad that she disappeared for those lengthy stretches when objects were exploding, ect., but appreciated the little moments, like the one between her and Gordon-Levitt in the building lobby. I also appreciate how they cast the strong female role with an actress who doesn't look like she'd be one. I'm used to strong female roles in action films going to women who look tough or statuesque.

My audience was definitely groaning at the ending too, but I suspect they were groaning at the ambiguity not at "oh, it was all just a dream." The top makes a noise like it might be winding down, so we are definitely supposed to be left with an uncertain feeling. Michael Caine's appearance at the airport sure made me lean toward the dream theory. Surely, even if he spent time in America and had contact with the children, he wouldn't be meeting his fugitive son at the airport and taking him home to be with his children, right? Ken Watanabe's character had "fixed things" with immigration for Leo, but he was still wanted for the murder of his wife, no? Caine's character seemed like a projection from the beginning, even the earlier sequence with him seemed like something of a fantasy. I know it's possible, but is it common for American students (Page) to take classes from British(?) professors (Caine) in Paris?

I loved the three (four?, five?) nested dreams, and Levitt's elegant solution to the anti-gravity problem was indeed a highlight. I wish they had played even more with the time element more: the people in this level have five minutes, this level have an hour, etc. I thought that was a clever, original suspense element. I'll agree with sausage in terms of placement within the Nolan canon. This just didn't have the emotional resonance of Nolan's best stuff. If it's about redemption for Leo, I don't understand how he's going to get it, or if he even can, or if I care, if it's all just a dream.

I wondered why Leo didn't "die" when he was in the van underwater. Even though it was part of a dream, Levitt and Page needed to use the oxygen tank so that they didn't "die" and go into Limbo or whatever. Since Leo didn't wake up when they did, he was still underwater presumably dreaming about being on Hoth and dreaming about being in Limbo when Page and Levitt were coming to the surface for air. There was probably some explanation for that that I didn't catch. I certainly want to see it again. It's all exceedingly clever and fascinating, and even when I was terribly confused, there wasn't a dull moment. Maybe I'll have to take notes next time. It's one that's going to be puzzled over and analyzed for some time, and I look forward to reading the various interpretations that are bound to turn up on the internet.

I can't help but wonder if the movie is going to be blamed for suicides. I can imagine that someone who's already a bit unbalanced and sees this could start questioning whether what they accept as reality is in fact just a dream, and they off themselves in order to "wake up" a la Marion Cotillard.