And in the End...

*ATTENTION: A SPOILER WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE; DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE YET TO SEE INCEPTION*

Inception is a great movie. This is a fact. I'm honestly saying this from a fairly neutral position; it's not really one of my favorite movies, and isn't attached to anything I have some bias for or against. Regardless of how you may feel about its themes (frankly I find it a little too cold and sterile at times, hence my criticism of the characters in the review) it's simply good filmmaking and good writing. However, no work of art can be completely without flaw, and often this can be gratifying. It teaches viewers that even the best of the best aren't perfect and that whatever the next classic is it will have something to improve upon. Yet because Inception is one of those particular kind of classics that has a certain vibe and succeeds on certain merits, its big flaw is one all too common among such films: its ending.

It isn’t bad just because it’s a twist ending (of sorts). A twist ending is something that never goes out of style, so long as it’s genuinely surprising. Being legitimately shocked after one to two hours of build up and excitement is a great bit of stimulation to leave one’s audience with, so the element of surprise shouldn’t be a problem with any movie, at least not in and of itself. Besides, with its constant reminders of the difficulty in determining dreams from reality for those who employ shared dreams, there being a question of reality at the end could hardly be considered a twist.

What I think is truly infuriating about this ending is that it’s ambiguous. As is very ironic for a term that is means the exact opposite of black and white, there really is a good and a bad kind of ambiguous ending. The good kind is the sort seen in Watchmen (the book that is; the movie was great, but the ending was barely the slightest bit ambiguous compared to its source material). This is an ambiguous ending where what is unclear is how the audience is supposed to feel. Someone has won, someone has lost; some are dead, some still live on. In terms of events occurring in story, it’s all over. However, what isn’t over is the audience’s reaction. Some will see the ending as sad, some will find it uplifting, others will agree on either position or some middle ground between them, but reach this agreement for completely different reasons. An ambiguous ending is a good thing when the moral/message/theme is what is ambiguous.

A bad ambiguous ending can be ambiguous in this way as well, but where it fails is in making the actual events of the story opaque as well as said occurrence’s implications. If anyone reading this article is a writer in any capacity what-so-ever, this is something they absolutely must come to understand: Readers want to know what happened. Do they like to debate about their favorite stories and properties? Absolutely, but the actual happenings of the story is not their favorite subject on which to theorize. How it all ends should be completely clear so the nerds and academics (read: nerds who are paid for their particular brand of nerd) can debate what said ending means and how satisfying it is. If a previously linear story suddenly asks the reader to just make up their own ending, there will be no debate as to how satisfied anyone is.

The Giver, The Sopranos, The Wrestler, 2001. These are all movies, books, tv shows, stories that are great in their own way, but are blighted by unclear endings. Ok, the events of 2001 are technically right on display, but really, any audience that claims to be viewing them with any degree of actual comprehension were either best friends with Stanley Kubrick, or are too far under the influence of a foreign substance to be given any credibility. Tales such as these and their newest fellow Inception prove that audiences do indeed enjoy a good bit of mental stimulation, so any who would claim that complaints by myself or others in relation to ambiguous endings are cries for more spoon feeding and less independent thought are clearly mistaken. An unclear ending is not clever, and debating how a good story ended in place of knowing is not any kind of productive mental stimulation. Think about this really: what does anyone gain from such an ending? The audience gains an increase in blood pressure, the internet gains a new crop of trolls, and the writer is able to spend less time being actually clever and more time rehearsing his art-farteur award speech. Speaking as a filmmaker who’s already experienced numerous forms of vindication and dejection, genuine adoration from honest fans is a far greater reward than any piece of metal or metal-looking plastic. With an unclear ending, you sacrifice the former in a weak attempt to capture the later.

I’ll indulge Nolan in throwing out my two cents by saying that, after Cobb has successfully completed his mission and been reunited with his family, I feel that his spinning top should’ve fallen, indicating the presence of earth’s normal gravity and therefore reality, resulting in what my fellow video game aficionados will know as “the good ending.” I suppose the idea behind the actual ending, making the top show signs of falling but not decisively so before cutting to the end credits, was to stimulate such a debate between those who feel as I do and those who feel differently. A noble attempt to make audiences more mentally engaged? Perhaps, but there’s no call for that when the entirety of Inception already does that, and without inspiring any enraged head slaps to do so I might add.