Waking up from "Inception"

NY Magazine film critic David Edelstein thinks the hoo-ha over Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is evidence of the same sort of mental tampering explored in the film:

"For the record, I wanted to surrender to this dream; I didn’t want to be out in the cold, alone. But I truly have no idea what so many people are raving about. It’s as if someone went into their heads while they were sleeping and planted the idea that Inception is a visionary masterpiece and—hold on … Whoa! I think I get it. The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype—a metaphor for itself."

I've been ambivalent, myself, even after a second viewing. There's just enough cleverness (e.g. the "Give me a kiss" scene, the use of slowed-down Edith Piaf to create the menacing score motif, the folding Paris, the brilliant notion that each layer of dream-within-a-dream expands relative time) to keep me on board despite the clunky exposition, the anemic characterization, and the eerie, not-fully-conscious - in fact, quite dream-like! - feeling that lots of things are not quite adding up.

So many people are proclaiming genius that I've tipped that way, as well. But I was pretty effectively de-programmed by a read through A D Jameson's Seventeen Ways of Criticizing Inception (note: read only if you've seen the film!). I don't agree with everything Jameson says, and he could stand to dial back some of his scathing pique*, but he makes some great points, particularly re: Nolan's prosaic filmmaking and blockheaded literalness.

Ironically, this page, where Inception-obsessed fans attempt to answer the film's unanswered questions, is an even more effective red pill. The labors these true believers endure to explain plot holes make a persuasive, if unintentional, case that the film really doesn't hold together very well.

* - among the useful, if hard-won, truths I gleaned from years spent refereeing a huge crowd trading opinions is that the angrier the refutation, the more biased that refutation usually is.