“There’s no ambiguity here”: Christopher Nolan explains the meaning behind the final shot of ‘Inception’
Is it really a Christopher Nolan movie if it doesn’t end on a note that’s either designed or destined to strike up debate that spans long into the night, and often rages on for years? For the most part, no.
Whether it’s the closing stretch of Memento recontextualising everything that came before, The Dark Knight Rises splitting opinion right down the middle with Michael Caine’s Alfred sagely nodding at Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, The Prestige revealing its entire narrative was a sleight-of-hand trick, or Tenet meeting itself back at the beginning of a future that’s yet to happen, it’s a distinctly Nolan thing.
However, none of the filmmaker’s grand finales have drummed up more discussions, theories, and bouts of conversational fisticuffs than Inception. Having completed his mission and been allowed to return home to his family, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb spins the totem of his deceased wife Mal, and turns away to spend time with his children after being reunited before it wobbles right before the screen cuts to black.
Is Dom still trapped in a dream somewhere? Is a picture-perfect ending too good to be true? Has he got everything he ever wanted and more? Does it even matter in the grand scheme of things? All of these questions and more have been analysed, pored over, and examined frame-by-frame to try and wring out a definitive answer, but for his part, Nolan places the Cobb children right at the forefront.
In an interview with Wired, Nolan blew apart many theories when he revealed that despite how many audiences recall them, Cobb’s kids are wearing different clothes and are of different ages during their fleeting appearances at either end of the narrative. “I’ve read a lot of misunderstanding or misremembering of the way those kids are portrayed on-screen,” he said, although he “didn’t want to specify too much” when the ol’ switcheroo happens within the context of Inception at large.
Befitting the overarching themes of the film, Nolan used the subtle deception to “portray somebody trying to visualise something that they can’t visualise.” Cobb hasn’t seen his children in so long that his own mind can’t recall exactly what they wore or how they looked the last time he was with him, with the shifting age and apparel “a strenuous attempt to play with that.” Not only that but one of the boys was played by his own son, who isn’t the person in the final scene. Or, as Nolan puts it, “There’s no ambiguity there.”
When it comes to the spinning top, though, Nolan admits “people who have kids read it differently than people who don’t,” although he does make a point of stating how it “isn’t the same as saying there’s no answer.” The top may be spinning to round out the movie, but for its director, “the most important emotional thing is that Cobb’s not looking at it.” He doesn’t care what reality he’s in as long as he’s with his kids.
Ambiguity has been a key component of Nolan’s work for decades, but as far as he’s concerned, that doesn’t apply to the ending of Inception in the conventional sense. The audience draws their own interpretation of what it means, but from his perspective, “If you make a film with ambiguity, it needs to be based on a sincere interpretation.”
Otherwise, it can contradict itself or, in the worst-case scenario, “end up making the audience feel cheated.” Although he never goes so far as to state in no uncertain terms which form of reality Cobb exists in, Nolan nonetheless puts the “satisfying ambiguity” of Inception down to the protagonist’s inability to know for sure “and the alignment of the audience with that character.”
It sounds a touch like cheating, but if the viewer believes Cobb is in the real world, then he is. On the other hand, if they think he’s still trapped in a dreamscape, then that’s entirely acceptable to Nolan, too. Either way, being together with his family is the most important thing to take away.
