Probably Unanswerable Questions
Is Dom dreaming, and is the whole film his dream? Was Ariadne sent by his father-in-law to find out whether he killed Mal? How can Saito erase a murder charge with one phone call? Why does Mal have a French accent when her father is Michael Caine? Why can't Cobb see his children's faces?
In the discussion (17)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:52Read transcript
- The opening question is the entire movie: is Dom dreaming, what part is real, and is he dreaming at the end; the hosts decide to do theories as well.
- A theory from Christopher Ryan's piece on TheRinger.com: beyond the broader idea that the whole film is Cobb's dream, Ellen Page's character was sent by his father-in-law, Michael Caine, posing as a student, to enter Cobb's subconscious and get him to admit he murdered Mal, which is why she asks questions incessantly, as an interrogator rather than only an audience surrogate.
- Michael Caine having a completely different accent from his daughter is called a Christopher and Jonathan Nolan issue with no reason behind it; they should have cast a French actor.
- One response is that she is still the audience surrogate; another is that Nolan keeps killing wives in movies without knowing why and may have written a character to find out; the theory is called poppycock and more interesting than the movie, but the film was consciously designed to let such theories propagate.
- The ending is recounted: Cobb returns home, spins his totem, hears his children, goes to them, and the camera stays on the wobbling totem before cutting to credits; this made one host angry and still does, because it does not matter should never be the message of a movie, and the better ending would follow Cobb to his kids without ever showing the totem wobble.
- A totally different read, noted as a rare disagreement between the two: it is not only okay but the point if the takeaway is that it does not matter, since a reality so unclear or painful that your existence becomes about combating or warping it is compelling; the Harry Potter line in which Dumbledore tells Harry that something happening inside his head does not mean it is not real is cited as the coolest idea in stories, mentioned with an apology to Sean, who is said not to like Harry Potter.
- The defender of the angry view says it is specifically the wobble that bothers them, a filmmaker's aha like retweeting someone with boom written on top; the reply is that it is a heavy-handed but effective prompt asking what reality is, and that the hosts all talking about it, like The Sopranos ending, is why it is rewatchable and regenerative.
- Asked if they like the ending, one host respects it as a good troll that keeps people talking, with Nolan refusing to come down either way, and so does not really like it but has to respect the hustle.
- A material question: Saito, played by Ken Watanabe, hires Cobb to make Fisher break up his company and promises to clear his murder charge; after the job he makes one call before landing and customs welcomes Cobb back, which the hosts find absurd, with a side complaint that customs does not look like that and the familiar point that he could have flown the kids to France.
- The film never clarifies whether Mal's mother believes Cobb killed her daughter, though she begrudgingly puts the kids on the phone and seems disgruntled with him.
- Polled directly, two voices think Dom is dreaming at the end; another says it does not matter.
- Whether Dom is dreaming does not matter to this host. — Sean Fennessey
- That different viewers can process the film differently is called a good thing: you can take it as an adventure story where the plan worked and Cobb went home, even though Saito's phone-call power implies he could have beaten his rival on his own, or believe Cobb is forever lost in limbo by choice or by going too deep.
- The meta reading is enjoyed: Nolan making a movie about a man who looks like Nolan and gets so lost in his own stories that he cannot see his kids or tell what is real; pure creation is a quote from the film, and devoting your life to movies is likened to choosing to stop living in reality, unless you are a documentarian.
- Raised during unintentional comedy: nobody understands why Cobb cannot see his kids' faces; it is called movie bullshit that exists only to set up the final reveal, within a broader argument that movies are nonsense you appreciate more by accepting them on their face.
- A charitable explanation nobody fully believes: viewers must accept a difference between a projection like Mal, a piece of Cobb's subconscious trying to tear him down, and a memory; the children not turning is the last real moment of his former life, when he fled before they could look at him, replayed on a loop to torture himself, so they behave freely because they are not fragments of his mind.
- The rebuttal is a joke that the explanation is acceptable only if in real life Mal looks like Artie Lang (as transcribed) rather than Marion Cotillard.