The ending of Inception has been a topic of debate for years as it was left intentionally ambiguous, but the movie’s final line could be hinting at Cobb still being trapped in a dream. Christopher Nolan has become one of the most respected filmmakers thanks to his narrative and visual style and the themes he often addresses in his projects, mostly those of time and identity. In 2010, he went deeper into those themes by also exploring the complexity of dreams in Inception, a movie that also left the audience debating on what’s real and what’s a dream.
Inception introduces Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a professional thief who specializes in stealing information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets, extracting and implanting ideas in the process and as needed. When Cobb is offered to have his criminal history erased so he can go back to his family after years of being on the run due to his “crimes”, Cobb takes on a complex mission that requires the help of his team, formed by architects, chemists, and more. Together, they build dream scenarios with different layers so they can extract the information they need from business heir Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), but their mission gets more and more complicated in each layer. However, Cobb and his crew are successful, and so his employer, Saito (Ken Watanabe), keeps his promise and Cobb returns to his family.
Cobb’s personal issues are at the core of Inception as the act of “inception” itself was what drove his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard) to commit suicide, leading Cobb to flee to the U.S., leaving his two children, Phillipa and James, behind. Cobb’s recurrent dream was the last time he saw his children, a scene that was mirrored in the final scene of Inception, confusing the audience as to whether Cobb was still dreaming or he was finally reuniting with his kids. Inception’s final line, however, hints that Cobb was still in a dream, as James tells him “we’re building a house on a cliff!”, just like Saito’s palace in his dream, which sat atop a cliff.
At the beginning of Inception, Cobb arrives at Saito’s palace, which as mentioned above, is located atop a cliff, and it’s soon revealed that it’s all a dream, specifically one set in limbo. Back to the final scene of Inception, the most debated aspect of it is Cobb’s totem, which is a spinning top that will continue to spin if he’s in a dream and will fall if he’s in the real world, but as the camera zooms in and it continues to spin, it cuts to black, leaving the audience wondering if Cobb had finally reunited with his children in the real world or if it was still a dream. The final line delivered by Cobb’s son could be a subtle hint at the final scene still being a dream by drawing a parallel with Cobb’s experience in Saito’s limbo at his palace on a cliff.
Cobb still being in a dream at the end of Inception would be a tragic ending for the character after all he went through, though it would still be a mystery if Saito didn’t keep his promise, if something else prevented Cobb from seeing his children, or if waking up from Fischer’s multilayered dream was also a dream. Although Nolan has implied that the final line was improvised by the child actor, it’s too much of a coincidence that he would mention a house on a cliff when the opening sequence of Inception showed a palace in that same location.