Skilled Cinematic Sleight of Hand: The Prestige
Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine

Review by Breanne Boland November 2, 2006 Issue

The sleight-of-hand and distraction The Prestige employs as it unfolds is as constant and seamless as the skill the film’s magicians use on stage. The twist ending rivals the work of M. Night Shyamalan for out-of-left-field astonishment, except with more feasibility and subtlety than he has ever employed. Christopher Nolan’s earlier film Memento should give audiences an idea of what they’re in for.

In late 1800s London, two up and coming magicians, played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, become enemies early in their careers and spend the rest of their time in the spotlight battling each other in a series of escalating encounters. Jackman’s magician achieves fame quickly because of his charisma and showmanship, but he burns with envy at Bale’s superior skill. Meanwhile, Bale fumes at what he perceives as Jackman’s unearned audience. When Bale perfects a trick that is not only extraordinary but also inexplicable, something surpassing anything ever gracing the stages of London, Jackman becomes obsessed with figuring out the secret, pursuing it across the world and back. Michael Caine plays a designer of illusions who mentors Jackman, and Scarlett Johansson is an on-stage assistant of dubious allegiance. David Bowie has a small but memorable part as exiled Nikola Tesla, hiding in the mountains of Colorado to work on his electrical marvels.

Modern magic acts can often be explained by technical tricks — lights or smoke or other distractions — but the rougher tools the magicians of this era worked with produced a purer sense of awe that’s still potent for today’s cynical audiences. Turn of the century London makes a perfect setting for the story, just as the world is readying itself to move into the more technologically advanced 21st century, making the feats and sleights of the stage lay closer to the realm of possibility than they ever had before. Dark, moody London incubates the brooding, years-long rivalry and enmity between the two magicians. Bale, seldom anything less than intense, smolders as the secretive magician who values his trade above anything else in his life, and Jackman owns the stage whenever he sets foot on it. Caine is his typical self, and solid as the off-stage maestro of illusions. Johansson wears her character’s duplicity well, leaving her true motivations hidden until the very end.

Rather than derailing the film, the twist ending works as well as anything transpiring on stage. Instead of feeling deceived, the audience feels appreciative of being duped by such skilled illusionists. The film’s tagline is “Are you watching closely?” and fortunately, attentive viewers are well rewarded.

The Prestige refers to the third stage of a magic trick — the moment of reward for an audience, when they get to see that everything, in some way, works out in the end. Of course, it can also refer to the accolades that come with having pulled off something marvelous, something more intricate than the casual eye can see. In this case, Christopher Nolan and company has certainly earned theirs.

Bottom line: a solid, engaging historical drama

Coming Attractions

November 3

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause – It used to be sequels, and now it seems everything becomes a trilogy. The upside is that once we endure the third of whatever inescapable series, the trial is over.

Flushed Away – From the studio that created Wallace and Gromit, whose Curse of the Were-Rabbit was one of the best-animated films last year. Hugh Jackman voices a posh rat who gets flushed down a toilet and has to adapt to the rough London sewers.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters on Da Ali G Show produced some of the most uncomfortable, squirm-inducing, and completely inspired comedy on television. His sexist, anti-Semitic, and hilarious Borat improvises awkwardness across America in this fake documentary.

November 10

Stranger Than Fiction – Will Ferrell plays an IRS agent who is the main character in author Emma Thompson’s new novel – except that he actually exists. Thompson is always delicious, and Ferrell is in a comedy not marketed at current and former members of fraternities! Score!

A Good Year – Russell Crowe plays a soulless businessman lured to the gentler, more leisurely life that Italy dutifully provides for all manner of harried film characters. Crowe could make a phonebook reading engaging, but he needs to stop doing films that can be dismissively described as “upbeat.”

The Return – Posters for this look like misprinted ads for The Grudge 2, but Sarah Michelle Gellar does horror well, so it’s ok if she’s going back to old territory again. When a young businesswoman has nightmares of another woman’s murder, she investigates, but of course there are consequences.

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