Ever since Inception first faded to black, everyone in the film-going world started chattering about their own interpretations of the ending in particular and the movie as a whole. Having just seen the movie a second time, I feel ready to type down my own opinions on the matter. Naturally, there are HUGE SPOILERS ahead, so I urge you not to read further unless you’ve seen the movie.

In fact, I’d urge you to see the movie as quickly as possible if you haven’t already. And to see it again if you have.

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There are two articles that pressed me to re-watch this film with an eye toward writing another blog entry. The first was this article from my favorite AICN correspondent, Massawyrm. He makes a very intriguing case that Inception is entirely on the level and that the top does fall at the end on the grounds that otherwise, the movie would be about nothing. The second was this article from Devin Faraci, arguably the most prominent writer at CHUD. He argues that every single moment in the film is a dream, yet that doesn’t mean that the film is about nothing. After all, the movie is about Cobb’s catharsis, and the entire point of movies and stories is that fake redemption can feel every bit as good as real-life redemption.

There are two other scenarios in between, both of which are discussed by Massawyrm. However, the two outcomes both rely heavily on the movie’s concept of Limbo, the explanation of which is so rushed, so dense and so left open to interpretation that I really don’t feel capable of discussing the topic comfortably just yet. I’ll only say that while the movie does leave open the possibility of Cobb and Saito killing themselves to escape Limbo — as Cobb and Mal once did — it’s left unclear how this is possible while under the sedation that sent them into Limbo to begin with. Moreover, if the sedation didn’t allow them to wake up after dying in Limbo, then where would it send them instead? There are way too many questions here for my liking, but since there’s some precedence of escape from Limbo and absolutely no evidence of a “sub-Limbo,” I’m forced to assume that Cobb and Saito did indeed somehow escape. I can’t see how they wouldn’t make the effort, considering how determined Saito was to keep his end of the bargain once he remembered it.

That leaves us with the “all or nothing” dilemma. Was everything a dream or was the entire movie on the level? Faraci presents a fascinating case for the former, and Massawyrm’s arguments only further establish the need for structure and closure in fiction. However, I do have many, many issues with Faraci’s article and with the general interpretation that everything in the movie is unreal.

For starters, it’s been argued that the top is unreliable because it used to belong to Mal. I consider this nonsense. When Arthur is explaining the concept of totems, he says that they work because each totem has its own unique feel and weight in the real world, known only to its owner, and that allowing someone to touch someone else’s totem would “defeat the point.” It’s thus heavily implied that someone with tactile knowledge of someone else’s totem could subconsiously tamper with its operation and provide a skewed result. In Cobb’s case, the only other person who has such knowledge of the top (that we know of) is Mal. Who is, in fact, deceased. All that’s left of her is the subconscious manifestation of Cobb’s guilt who attempts to undermine his perceptions of reality without ever once mentioning the damned top. She can’t affect it in the real world and there’s no evidence to suggest that she’s able to affect the top in the dream world or interested in doing so. The point is thus moot.

Faraci also argues that “even the basics of the dream sharing technology is unbelievably vague,” using this as further evidence. BULLSHIT. The dream-sharing briefcase neither got nor required any more explanation than Doc Brown’s flux capacitor, the transporter of Star Trek, the spice melange, Doctor Who’s sonic screwdriver, the memory-wiping surgery of Lacuna Inc. or any application of artificial gravity ever. Science fiction devices that work entirely because the premise needs them to are a staple of the genre. This is just one more.

Another bit of evidence presented is the fact that if the entire movie was in Cobb’s head, it would go a long way toward explaining some of the movie’s plot holes and inconsistencies. Faraci cites the scene in which Cobb and Mal are talking to each other from across an alleyway (did she really rent out or break into the room across?), but I prefer Saito’s inexplicable ability to expunge a murder charge with a twenty-minute phone call, as well as his weak-sauce rationale for why closing his competitor would be good for the world. Michael Caine’s ability to go from Paris to L.A. in time to meet Cobb back home is another favorite. Yes, these plot weaknesses and many more could be argued away on the basis that it’s not real… but why would anyone do such a thing?!

Imagine that you’ve just finished a movie/TV show/story and you’re left with innumerable questions as to how the story makes any lick of sense. Now imagine that a friend, a film critic or even the storyteller him/herself could only answer your questions by saying “Chill out, it’s just a story,” or “It doesn’t matter, none of it’s real.” Worse yet, suppose that the author had written him/herself out of a very tight corner with that infamous five-word ending, “And then I woke up.” Since when did any of these become valid excuses for storytelling deficiencies? I simply cannot believe that any respectable movie critic or scholar would give plot holes and implausibilities a free pass based solely on the possibility that everything seen is not real.

Of course, none of this answers the central question: Was the movie a dream or not? This is the question that was on my mind through the entire running time of my second viewing, yet it wasn’t until I walked out that I had an epiphany: This movie is not told from Cobb’s point of view. Unlike Shutter Island, in which every frame was seen through DiCaprio’s eyes, there are numerous scenes (Yusuf’s car chase, the anti-gravity hallway fight, Fischer Jr.’s acceptance of the inception, Arthur training Ariadne on paradoxical structures, the kissing joke, etc.) in which he has absolutely no role. Are these other characters simply projections of Cobb’s subconscious, acting out their parts and motivations when Cobb himself isn’t looking? I find that very doubtful. All of the other projections we see are completely blank and more or less docile, rarely gaining anything that resembles a personality and even then, only in the presence of a living mind. This leads me to believe that if the whole movie is indeed a dream, then it’s not a dream from a first-person POV, but from a third-person POV.

So who is the dreamer, then? Cobb? Or is this a shared dreaming experience amongst all of the characters? Hell, if the entire movie is a dream, then what proof do we have that they even exist? How do we know that extraction, dream-sharing and inception really exist? For all we know, the entire movie, all of its characters and all of its story ideas could have been pure fiction, dreamed entirely by some stranger for entertainment purposes.

Oh, wait. We actually know that to be true: The stranger’s name is Christopher Nolan.

Discounting this, as we would for any other movie, I’m left to believe that the top does fall. As further evidence, I submit James and Phillipa. Faraci states that they’re wearing the exact same clothes as in all of Cobb’s other visions of them, but that’s not entirely true. They’re clearly wearing different shoes during the end and I’m pretty sure that James is wearing a different pattern of plaid. More importantly, Cobb repeatedly uses the kids as a totem of his own. Cobb spends the last of his days with Mal trying to convince her that James and Phillipa are real while Mal is convinced that they aren’t. Ever since then, the prospect of seeing his kids’ faces has been the only thing driving Cobb. It’s the only thing he has left to live for in the real world. Moreover, after all those years of being haunted by the backs of their heads and re-living that one memory in every one of his dreams, I’d think that his subconscious might have filled in those blanks long ago if it had the power to do so. Therefore, I’d argue that Cobb left the top behind because he didn’t need it anymore. The fact that he saw his kids’ faces is all the proof he needs.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that it’s the end-all, be-all answer. I’m also aware that this interpretation would leave the movie with several plot deficiencies, but I don’t think that makes it a worse movie. I said in my past write-up that Nolan covers the story’s weak spots with the skill of a storytelling grandmaster and I stand by that. He crafted a story of two men reconciling with their respective families, wrapped in a dazzling, high-concept heist movie and filled with more ideas and clues than could be sorted through with a dozen screenings.

Inception was clearly built with ambiguity in mind and that’s going to make finding a final, true answer nigh-impossible. From the nightmarish visuals of the Mumbasa chase to the scarce definitions of Limbo to the kids’ different shoes, it’s all about which details you choose to ignore and which blanks you fill in for yourself.

“If we shadows have offended….”