As a number of people have pointed by asking, my review of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” doesn’t offer much perspective on the performances in the film. The reason is probably a combination of a few things.
For starters, I wanted to be as careful as possible to write a spoiler-free review that could be enjoyed by those who haven’t seen the film, and whenever I would find myself considering this or that performance, I felt detailed commentary on plot seeping in. So I pulled back. But more importantly, and this is no swipe at the talent on screen, the real star of the film is Nolan and his imagination.
That sounds like a cop out, but it’s not. I really and truly didn’t get a whole lot out of the performances. My favorite is perhaps the least emotional turn of the piece, a steely, confident, at times physically demanding piece of work from an actor I admit rarely does it for me: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He lays claim to the character you’d probably trust sooner than the rest if you found yourself in these mind-bending circumstances and does it without histrionic swagger. I dug that.