Inception (2010)

Imagine what it would be like if you could enter somebody else's dreams. You could see their innermost secrets, their desires, their fears, their intentions, their demons. Now, imagine that you had the power to alter those dreams, to erase their demons. Or give them new ones. Would you go there? That's the central idea in Christopher Nolan's Inception, a mind-bending thriller about a near-future world where dreams can be shared and controlled. The story revolves around Cobb (Leaonardo DiCaprio). Cobb is a haunted man, a man on the run, a man who can't go home because he's wanted for the murder of his wife. Cobb makes his living by entering people's dreams and stealing their secrets, which he then sells to interested third parties. One day Cobb is approached by Saito (Ken Watanabe) and asked to do a job that is supposed to be impossible. Instead of stealing an idea, Saito wants Cobb to place an idea inside the mind of his main business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). When Cobb refuses, Saito offers to erase Cobb's criminal record so that he can return home and see his children again. Cobb agrees, assembles his team and goes to work. Saito gets Cobb close enough to Fischer to enter his dreams, and Cobb and his crew drill down through one dream layer after another until they reach a point that is deep enough to plant an idea that Fischer will think is his own. There are only two problems: Fischer's mind has been trained to fight off a dream invasion, and Cobb's own secret demons threaten to derail the entire caper.

Inception is an intelligent movie with an incredibly complicated plot and truly mind-blowing special effects. Watching it, I was reminded of the novels of Philip K. Dick, where the characters are often unclear as to what is actually reality and what is simulation or dream or insanity. Inception plays with reality in the same way, until neither the characters nor we are sure of what is real and what is dream. In the end, Cobb washes up on the shores of Saito's subconscious, where a minute of real time feels like a 1,000 years in dream time. Will Saito believe that the reality he's constructed around himself is an illusion and follow Cobb back up to the real world? Would you believe someone if they told you that "everything you see or seem was but a dream within a dream?"

Inception is rated PG-13.