Inception Spoiler
Regarding Mike D’Angelo’s highly lucid and entertaining (as usual) review of “Inception:”
(This is *not* Inception Plot Wankery. I hate that shit.)
I don’t know why Mike gave such short shrift to the father-son dynamic. Yes, the Mal-Dom relationship is huge and intriguing, but Nolan is also at great pains to bring the Murphy- Postlethwaite relationship front & center, even though Fischer Sr. spends most of the movie locked behind Fischer Jr.’s strongest emotional barriers.
In fact, I’ve just had an insight into the movie that could drag me to the theater for a second viewing: Is Nolan trying to do an Inception on us, the viewers? Throughout the movie, we’re presented with this notion of Inception as dirty, lowdown emotional / corporate sabotage, unethical, wrong, dangerous. However, when it finally succeeds in the movie, we receive it as a moment of transcendence and growth for Fischer Jr.’s character…a moment he will (the viewer might suppose) be forever grateful for regardless of the outcome of the corporate split.
Oops — I hate to tell you this, Mike, but what we’ve just seen is yet another “noble shrink” movie, this time with the shrink inside the patient’s head.
