The Prestige

The Prestige
Dir.: Christopher Nolan
Call No.: 791.4372 PRE

Are you watching closely?

Well, you’d better, or you’re sure to lose yourself in the convoluted storyline of The Prestige. The film presents itself in the three stages of a magician’s act: the Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige. Each act fulfils its respective purpose to inform, to distract and to surprise. Unfortunately, like Alfred Borden’s (Christian Bale) performances, the finale ultimately fails in its bid to delight because it sells its magic too fast, too cheaply. The audience is left mystified at the ending.

The Pledge
We are introduced to the main players. Alfred Borden and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) are two up-and-coming magicians. Borden is the greater magician, but he lacks the consummate showmanship of Angier. Working together with Cutter (Michael Caine), an engineer of magical illusions, they appear destined for great things on the stage, until one day, a possible mistake Borden makes results in the death of Angier’s wife, Julia (Piper Perabo). The tale then turns into one of revenge and obsession, as one tries to upstage the other in an increasingly deadly game of one-upsmanship that centres around an illusion called “The Transported Man”.

The Turn
The film drives along at a relentless pace that matches the obsessive nature of its protagonists, intersecting stories from three different timelines. In one, we follow the pair’s early days as apprentices and their violent confrontations with each other after the accident. In a second, we track Angier’s trip to Colorado Springs, USA, as he seeks a contraption from Nikolas Telsa (imagine that, David Bowie) that he believes will give him the edge over Borden. Finally, the third takes us to Borden’s jail cell in the present, as he stands accused of murdering Angier.

Director Christopher Nolan is a master at conflating storylines, as he demonstrated with his breakthrough film, Memento. Unlike that film however, the warped presentation of The Prestige seems to serve the sole purpose of creating the misdirection that would allow the magician Nolan to pull off his sleight-of-hand in the last act. Unfortunately, the Turn is less than perfect because the attentive movie-goer will be able to work out what’s coming up in the climax about a third through the film. And perhaps the less said about the Prestige the better.

The Prestige
The finale reveals to the audience the secrets behind both Angier and Borden’s versions of “The Transported Man”. One is believable, if not predictable, while the other unhappily veers so far off the tangent, it almost unravels all the good work that went before it. Nolan tries to pull a fast one on the audience here, but the attempt is too blatant to miss. Instead of surprise elation, what the audience gets, when the secret is unveiled, is head-scratching puzzlement.

Are you watching closely?
The Prestige is a good film marked by strong performances throughout. Captivating with its twists and turns, it sends the viewer on a diabolic journey into the heart of obsession, a world where paying the price is the only way to live. A pity then, that the show is let down by its weak denouement. This trick could have been top-notch.

Ed: For more on The Prestige, read this High Browse review of Christopher Priest’s award-winning book on which the movie is based.