leo cld be incepting himself of the idea that he is innocent of killing mal - he feels guilty about incepting her (leading to her suicide) and needs to be convinced of the idea that mal was responsible for her own death. potentially, the other major characters are an inception team - like leo is maybe apart of - helping him cleanse his subconscious so he can sleep forever with a clean conscience. in a nutshell he's "mr.charles-ing" himself. the movie ends in a dream (for multiple obv reasons imo) so under this theory the entire movie is in leo's dreams. it may also mean that all of the fighting is leo battling his own self-conscious - including mal, a projection of leo's, who predictably (a) wld be upset at him - for incepting her of the idea that resulted in her death - smth leo knows about and thus feels continuous guilt (and loss) over and (b) is trying to **** leo's stable dreams up - bc leo knows her last wish was for him to kill himself, as well, so he cld "live" w her forever.

another explanation is that he actually killed his wife, and is trying to replace that memory with one that (falsely) vindicates him. she was declared sane thrice, maybe too sane to do this, and the inception theory, itself, is smth constructed to counter-explain mal's death.

biggest problem w my theory/s? too many things happen/are shown in the movie that aren't rly relevant to this supposed plot line. for example, if this is true, it wld mean that the entire storyline about planting the idea about breaking up that guy's dad's corporate monopoly is just a diversion - perhaps generated to create sufficient catharsis within leo for the idea of his own innocence to stick - and thus we wldn't rly need to see how it gets resolved, etc. under my theory, that tension we feel during all that action is kind of for no reason

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cliffnotes on my theory: its all a dream

but ima have to rewatch cuz some parts are a little blurred in my memory