Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team are employed by
very rich people to spend their time in the dreams of others in order to steal
valuable secrets. Their newest employer, Saito (Ken Watanabe), is a little
different. He wants them to go into the mind of a business competitor and plant
an idea. That is so difficult and in order to do so the team risk ending up spending the rest of their lives in limbo. Cobb’s projection of his wife, Mal (Marion
Cotillard), threatens to destroy their mission at every step and it puts the whole
team in constant danger.
To be able to see into someone’s mind, to be able to walk
through their memories and their experiences and their thoughts, just seems
like such a beautiful thing. It’s not about being nosy but more because people
rarely tell you exactly what they’re thinking, or if they do, they filter it so
it’s better for you to listen to. The ideal for me would just be unadulterated
honesty at all times. Truly knowing someone seems close to an impossibility
because the distance between who they are and who they project themselves to be
is massive. In order to know someone, they have to close the gap. That is it
for me, I don’t know a lot of things about me or anyone for that matter but I
know that: I want to close the gap.
You know, I thought it would be amazing to be able to dream
so well that you could actually have a whole life with someone. Or maybe not
even a whole life, but to imagine someone so clearly that it’s almost as if
they are there with you. But it clearly would never even touch on how wonderful
it would be to actually have it in reality. Like is said in the film, you can
never imagine a person completely. People are so complex and their every
thought and action is influenced by a myriad of different and sometimes
contradictory forces. How could you ever hope to dream of that person in their
entirety? Sure, you could make an adequate copy and maybe you’d be happy
enough. But it would never be them, not really. Imagination is powerful but it
can’t be everything.
In the hotel room, Mal accuses Ariadne (Ellen Page) of not
understanding what is going on because she has never felt what it’s like to be
a lover, “to be half of a whole”. For me, I don’t believe anyone you are with
should be seen as your other half. I think you should be complete yourself so
that anyone who is with you gets to share in who you are, not make you who you
are. If they leave, does that make you incomplete again? It’s all so fragile, I
just refuse to believe that it should be the right way of things. You are not
defined by the people in your life, you are defined by you. By being the truest
version of yourself. I just can’t believe that people are incomplete and it’s
only through being with someone else that they can be whole. That seems so sad.
It must just be the hardest thing when someone you love
kills themselves. Especially when they do it right in front of you. Mal completely believes that this world
is not her reality and she needs to die in order to get back to where she and Cobb built their lives together. And Cobb put the idea in her head without meaning
for it to cause this much destruction and so he feels guilty forever after. He
keeps going back into his dreams in order to be with her but he can never get
past his guilt, and he does know that she isn’t real and it breaks his heart
that he can’t go back and fix what he did. But he does get to return to
his home and his children. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a dream or not because
he gets to finally be with them again and that’s what he has wanted for so
long. This is his reality now.
Leonardo DiCaprio is such a brilliant actor. His eyes just
slay me in every film, they are so believable. When I was watching the film, I
was utterly convinced he was Dom Cobb and that he loved Mal with a passion I
can’t even imagine. You just get lost in his portrayal of his characters and it’s
lovely to be a part of.
I always forget how much I love this film. It’s just so
beautiful. I love when the café and the street are exploding around Cobb and
Ariadne, it’s such a great scene. The whole film is just lovely to watch.
9/10
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