Leonardo DiCaprio explains the architecture of dreams to Ellen Page on the streets of Paris. 

It's nearly impossible to review Leonardo DiCaprio's latest film, 'Inception,' without spoiling it, and once spoiled, it will be nearly impossible to watch it, so I won't do that here.

I will instead take you on a journey, a journey through the landscape of the multi-layered dream that is the film. 

The premise of the film, directed by Christopher Nolan of 'Memento' and 'The Dark Knight,' is entirely built on dreams--the landscape of dreams, the mechanics of dreams, the layers of dreams, the reasons for dreams--and distinguishing places in our subconscious from places in reality.  To that extent, I found it fascinating--the architecture of a dream, how we create worlds of our own snatched from memories of real people, real events, add our own characters, our own plot, our own dramatic chase scenes, and then, hopefully and in most cases, awaken to realize it was, indeed, all a dream.

DiCaprio's protagonist, Cobb, is apparently something of a specialist in dreams, and shows us layers of dreams within dreams, the premise being that one can insert themself into the dreams of others either to extract information or to plant it.  The supporting characters join in his dreams to achieve the difficult goal of planting an idea in another character's brain, known as 'inception.'  To do this, we journey with them through several layers of shared dreams, beaches and frozen mountaintops, skyscrapers and streets, children playing, cars crashing.  

Important in the plot is the notion of 'the kick,' the concept that someone can come out of the dream with a sudden jolt, falling backward, for example, as well as the concept of using sedation to facilitate certain types of dreaming.

Anyone watching the film who's had vivid dreaming in their life will relate to the dreamscapes, the alternate realities, the chase scenes, the fear of impending death, the sudden jolts, and ponder anew how much of their own dreaming is based on memories of real events, people and places, and how much is manufactured by a creative brain.

For some, there are certain landscapes that continue to appear in dreams that appear nowhere in reality, places we've built ourselves over time which become familiar to us, but only in dreams, and when we're awake, we marvel that we've gone to the same place again and again. 

Cobb sees family members in these dreams, a wife who is apparently dead, and two young children who long for their father's return from wherever he happens to be (alternately in the film locations like Paris, Tokyo and Mombasa).  He is tortured by the memory of his wife, played by Marion Cotillard, and counseled by a loving father, Michael Caine.   Ken Watanabe and Juno's Ellen Page play important supporting roles alongside DiCaprio's Cobb as he journeys through several layers of dreams.

You'll need to understand the importance of water, sedatives, the kick, the relationship between a father and a son, flying, falling, shared memories and a rescue. 

It's fascinating to me that this is Leo's second foray in a row into the land of uncertain reality.   Whereas in 'Shutter Island' he was stuck in a place of questionable sanity, in 'Inception' he is trapped in a place of questionable existence.  Whether there's someone in Hollywood who's just decreed Leo's the man for such films, I don't know, but he did both convincingly, and I was satisfied, and amused with the nod to 'Titanic' in the first and the nod to Cotillard's 'La Vie en Rose' in the second.  My difficulty in reviewing 'Shutter Island' was the same, not wanting to traverse that long, dark hallway without giving away its secrets.

The entire cinematic experience is something akin to riding a rollercoaster while playing a high-level video game and watching three channels of television simultaneously, and takes some brain cells to keep up.  If you watch carefully from beginning to end and don't surrender to the complication, you should enjoy the film enough to want to watch it again.

I recommend not getting up to use the restroom. 

If I enticed you to see this intellectually and emotionally satisfying film without spoiling it for you, I have succeeded in my task.  See it. 

Perhaps the most important character in the film, a spinning top. 

Author's note:    I have read Andrew O'Hehir's fascinating and controversial review of this film in Salon.  Clearly, he missed the point of the entire film, which is why it doesn't wrap up neatly for him at film's end.  If you understand it correctly, it will, and masterfully so.  To say more here would, unfortunately, spoil the plot.  Don't make me come 'splain it to you, Andrew.

On the Web:

'Inception' - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times 

"Inception:" a clunky, overblown disappointment - Andrew O'Heier, Salon