There
were a number of excellent movies this year. Toy Story 3
had deep emotional resonance.
Scott Pilgrim breathed
new life into the comic book film. And Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows pt 1 was the
best in the series. But it was writer/director Christopher Nolan's
Inception that won the
coveted spot of best picture. And make no mistake, this is
completely a Nolan movie. This does not take away from the great
performances of the (to my mind) finally grown-up DiCaprio, the
haunting Marion Cotillard, and the ultra cool Joseph Gordon-Levitt
(this is the same kid from 10 Things I Hate About You,
right?). Many people focused on the technical achievement of this
film, and rightly so. But all of that is just smoke and mirrors.
The plot: Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb is someone who engages in
industrial espionage by stealing ideas from people's dreams. The
tables are turned, however, when he is hired by a businessman (Ken
Watanabe), not to steal an idea, but to plant an idea in the mind of
a business rival (Cillian Murphy). Cobb gets a crew together
consisting of wing-man Arthur (Levitt), heavy-hitter Eames (Tom
Hardy), techie Yusef (Dileep Rao), and newbie dream designer Ariadne
(Ellen Page). Together they embark on a high stakes mission into the
mind.
Even with this set-up, Inception
achieves great originality and spectacle, but the fun just begins.
Soon, the plan begins to fall apart, causing the group to improvise
deeper and deeper into the dream world, each time upping the stakes
and the tension. All the while the dream thieves are being haunted
by Cobb's wife Mal (Cotillard). What sets this film apart, in the
end, is its complexity and its emotional heft. The film acts as a
movie version of Russian nesting dolls: action takes place inside of
action, inside of action, all happening simultaneously. The effect
is a multiplication of thrills because you are not simply
experiencing one high tension sequence after another, but instead you
see them all at the same time.
But even with this complicated
achievement, it is the central mystery, the mystery of Cobb's broken
life, that puts this over the top. Something is haunting this man,
who is so lost he can barely separate reality from dream.
Understanding his pain, his guilt, and his need for redemption makes
us desperately desire that he navigate his was through the mental
maze of his own making and make it back home.
RUNNERS UP
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage
of the Dawn Treader
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 1
Toy Story 3
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
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