A full eight years later — well past the time when people were agonizing over it — Michael Caine deigned to explain once and for all the mysterious ending of Inception. The mind-bending 2010 Christopher Nolan movie left audiences with one final cliffhanger: Was the happy ending dream or reality?
Moviegoers weren't the only ones left confused. Caine, who played Leonardo DiCaprio's father in the film, spoke to Time Magazine about the oft-disputed conclusion.
"When I got the script of Inception, I was a bit puzzled by it," he told the outlet. "And I said to [Nolan], ‘I don’t understand where the dream is.’ I said, ‘When is it the dream and when is it reality?’ He said, ‘Well, when you’re in the scene, it’s reality.’ So get that — if I’m in it, it’s reality. If I’m not in it, it’s a dream."
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Was Caine in it? Let's check.
I spy a Michael Caine in that final scene, so that's that: It's real. Turns out the spinning totem (which spins forever if in a dream and falls if in reality) does actually fall after the cut to black. This explains the wobbling motion of the totem seen here, which many have pointed to when trying to decode the disputed ending. Wonder no more! Can Michael Caine now explain Hereditary?