*Synopsis: Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a thief of a very peculiar sort. He sneaks into people’s dreams and steals their secrets, he calls it “Extraction”. When a job to steal the secrets of Saito (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, he finds himself offered a deal. Rather than steal, he is to plant an idea inside the target’s mind, it’s called “Inception”. It’s supposed to be impossible, but Cobb’s done it before...

Christopher Nolan has finally done it. He’s made a film I’m thinking about after watching it. He always makes great films, enjoyable and intelligent, but there’s a cold precision to them. They dazzle with their intelligence, but like a Chinese puzzle box, once the path of the pieces is made clear there’s nothing left to fascinate. But with Inception there’s flaw in an otherwise perfect surface. A flaw that makes the film stick in my mind and has left me musing on the ideas of the film, rather than simply their execution.

Set inside dreams, Inception takes a novel approach to investigating the unconscious mind, memory, perception and especially ideas. How they take root, how they change us, how they define us, is the root of the story. The power and danger of an idea are expertly explored in the lengths to which Cobb and his associates go to suggest to energy magnate Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) that he break up his father’s empire. People are by nature resistant to change, to new ideas. The task of the team is to convince Fischer that the idea is his own. Like confidence men of the unconscious, they sculpt Fischer’s dreams and manipulate his perceptions of his relationships to feed him the cues they need him to take. It’s a fabulous multi-levelled shell game that is exhilarating in its execution.

But it’s not just the mission that impresses, but also what Cobb takes with him. His former wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) stalks him through his dreams, out to foil him and drive him into her arms. The complexities of their relationship provide the meat to the story, to the dangers of what Cobb and his team are playing with. Because in dreams you don’t die, you wake up, unless you push things too far. Cobb and Mal’s story provides context to exactly what those stakes can involve.

The imagery is delirious, ranging from a solidly-grounded reality to gravity-defying action sequences and a James Bond fantasy involving an assault on a mountaintop stronghold. What’s wonderful is that there are clear, motivated reasons for the different dreamscapes, and the cutting between the different levels is well-handled. Anyone who claims that Inception is difficult to follow is just not paying attention. A lot of work is done to establish the rules for way the dream invaders operate, and the logic of these interactions is awesome.

But it’s that keen logic that brings the film occasionally unstuck. Small things annoy, like a throwaway line (seen in the trailer) given to Tom Hardy’s Eames, of not being afraid to dream a bigger gun. Dreaming a bigger gun may be cute, and get the team out of a sticky situation, but why does nobody do it when needed at other times? And an attempt to add some confusion over what’s a dream and what is reality towards the end stumbles. A monologue by Mal, reminiscent of Dr Edgemar’s speech in Total Recall, suggests the whole thing may be a dream, but it lacks conviction. While Total Recall achieved its ambiguity by situating the question front and centre, daring Schwarzenegger’s Quaid to make a choice and goading the audience to choose with or against him, here it’s a throwaway moment of almost no consequence. None of the characters question their reality, as Inception has provided a cunning solution to this existential question in the form of totems, small keepsakes that are personal to the holder and possess qualities known only to them. That Inception then seeks to play with this notion becomes frustrating rather than intriguing. If the characters themselves are unconcerned, why should we, the audience be bothered?

But strangely, this is why I love the film so much. Nolan’s films are rich in ideas, in detail and character, but the trap-like closing of their plots has meant I’ve never had any inclination to revisit them. The tiny flaws in Inception have given me motivation to consider the film, and as I think about what worked and what didn’t I think about the nature of ideas, of dreams, of memory and what we choose to keep and what should be let go. There’s a great deal to ponder inside this mega-budget action/thriller that’s a feast for the eyes and the mind. It may frustrate a little in its attempts to be too-clever-by-half, but it’s a very rewarding frustration all the same.