Inception – Directed by Christopher Nolan. Techno-thriller. To change a man’s mind, a trained crew enters his dream-world to try to hypnotize him. 148 minutes Color 2010.
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Pete Postlethwaite plays the pivotal role here, which can mean and does mean that his part may be minute but still crucial. All he needs to make is one small turn. Everything depends on that. Hubbing out from him are his son and heir whose mind is to be invaded, and on the outer rim the tycoon who is financing the invasion. The focal role is that of the son, very well acted by Cillian Murphy. Tai-Li Lee does the tycoon beautifully. Which leaves the spokes, the crew of invaders, all beautifully cast and perfectly played: Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ellen Page, the last two of which are given and reward a good deal of our attention. The one item of miscasting is Marion Cotillard as the wife of Leonardo Di Caprio. She’s a great actress, but lacks mystery, at least in this part she does. The result is that we do not really care about the fate of their marriage. I’m not sure that any actress could play the part, for the hero/husband is played by Di Caprio, who is not a leading man but a leading boy. The vexed lines between his brows, the passion and conviction and honesty and skill with which he animates and invests every single thing he does here cannot countermand the fact that he is not a grown-up. Fortunately it is not a grown-up movie, so it doesn’t matter that much. It is a wonderful piece of child’s play, superb in all particulars, and we sit on the edge of our seats to follow it. It is executed to perfection by the director and the camera people, by everyone involved, in fact. It is cinematic to the max: our suspense is sustained for the last 20 minutes by the mere drift of a van off a city bridge into the water of a river. What could be better? In this genre, nothing. Di Caprio is one of our great actors, but he is not a leading man: he is a character lead, which is a quite different category and requires exactly the rare instrument which De Caprio in fact possesses: a talent for imposture. See him in Blood Diamond, Celebrity, Total Eclipse, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape to really get a sense of his gifts. But see this too. He can carry a load. But because he carries them, all the loads he carries become — and it’s still delightful to us all when the load is, as here it is supposed to be — hollow.
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