Why The 8 Biggest Criticisms Of Christopher Nolan Are Wrong

8. Exposition Dumps

The Criticism: Christopher Nolan movies tend to deal with complicated stories, be it through a lot of spinning character plates or brand new concepts. This naturally means there's a lot of information that needs to explained to the audience for them to subsequently follow what's going on. And his critics are keen to highlight how this exposition is poorly handled, with much of the dialogue simply dumping information on the audience in one go. The Defence: This strikes as one of the most nit-picky criticisms, trying to find overlying fault in his movies. The exposition isn't doled out through narration or any other hokey technique, but semi-organically in conversations that fit within the context of the movie. And when it is more overt it's normally at plot essential points, where the audiences actually wanting these sort of questions answered. Inception, certainly Nolan's most high concept film yet, has a lot to get across about the logistics of shared dreaming. Doing so through a mix of in-action examples and less-veiled teachings, it keeps the story going while getting the explanations across. There's certainly moments that exist for pure exposition purposes, but the likes of The Matrix were equally as guilty. And what Inception has that's different here is a clearly-stated and pressing narrative goal.