Early in Christopher Nolan’s movie The Prestige, Michael Caine’s character taunts the audience with a bit of magic-show truth: “if you’re looking for the secret, you won’t find it, because you’re not really looking,” he says. It’s clear that Caine isn’t just talking about magic; he’s offering advice to the film’s audience, as well: You’re welcome to look for the sleight of hand; that’s natural, and maybe you’ll find it. But the fun here is in sitting back and enjoying what there is to see, taking in the magic, and being surprised at the end. Turns out he’s right.
The Prestige, based on Christopher Priest’s 1996 novel of the same name, tells the story of two magicians in turn-of-the-century London (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) and their growing personal and professional rivalry. It’s a dark story, full of obsession and revenge–apparently just the kind of thing Nolan thrives on, as he is also working with Bale on the current spate of Batman movies–as well as a complicated plot with plenty of chances for misdirection.
In making The Prestige, Nolan clearly understands and relishes his role as magician: he’s taken everything the movie has to say about performing magic and applied it carefully to his own movie, then used the extra time and energy to put his own dark kind of curlicues on it. The distinction is an important one in this film. The first, most basic step for any magician is simply to be able to pull off a trick–to make something vanish, or saw someone in half, or whatever. But any trick and any film, even if they’re executed perfectly, still fail if the magician doesn’t engage the audience. There’s an upping of the ante, a creation of mood, that needs to happen. Lucky for us, Nolan is technical enough of a director to tell his tale well, and enough of a showman to sell it. The Prestige is a big story, and Nolan acknowledges its size, gives it the time it needs, and lets it fill up the screen. He has a good feel for the magical, the details that will intrigue the audience–his willingness to be a little morbid and his eye for striking images supply the necessary tension, and strong performances by charismatic actors make the story pop. Also, David Bowie turns up in the role of Nikola Tesla. And if that’s not street cred, then I think we’re finished here.
It’s not a perfect film. The initial series of incidents between the two magicians lacks the necessary sense of increasing urgency, so that the situation makes sense intellectually, but feels a little slack. Bale and Jackman both give good performances, but playing the crazy obviously comes a little less naturally to Jackman than it does to Bale (who’s just sort of…like that; I think he just gets up on the tortured side of the bed). So while the story is very much about Jackman’s character, Bale uses up a disproportionate amount of the energy onscreen, just by showing up and breathing. And most importantly, the resolution of the plot is mildly disappointing–the audience will either pick up on the clues early on, and miss the fun of the reveal, or they’ll find it eye-rollingly simple when everything finally comes out. It’s to be expected; as Caine’s character points out earlier in the movie, the secret behind any magic trick is never as interesting as the trick itself. In telling us the whys and hows of the plot, there’s a tiny bit of letdown–we wanted to believe, and it’s a little glaring when we can see all of the wires and pulleys we thought we were looking for. However, Nolan makes a wise move by not letting the story settle there, and the new information–what would be the end of most movies–engenders a whole new set of eleventh-hour twists and turns. The plot literally continues through the final shot of the film, so that the credits leave the audience still feeling steamrolled. That’s a good feeling for any director.
In the end, The Prestige is a satisfying film–not a flawless film, but one that feels big and complex, like it’s done everything it should do, even if you wish just a little that you hadn’t seen how it’s all done.
