|
Good friends Rupert Angiers (Hugh Jackman), Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Angiers' wife Julia
(Piper Perabo) are magician's assistants. One show night, in an act of bondage, Julia drowns in a water tank, leading Angiers to blame Borden who tied the rope around
Julia's wrists that she was unable to untie. The tragedy made bitter enemies of Angiers and Borden who now part ways, become magicians themselves who are obsessed with
upstaging each other in their career. Of the two, Angiers has more flair as a showman, but Borden has more skills with magic tricks. In the resulting rivalry, Angiers
gets fixated with flushing out Borden's trade secrets while Borden's mania is to spoil Angiers' show every chance he gets. Angiers sends his assistant and lover Olivia
(Scarlett Johansson) to work for Borden in order to spy on his secrets but Olivia eventually falls in love with Borden, a development which his wife Sarah (Rebecca Hall) responds
to with suicide. Still, the two men's obsession with illusion leads to even more mean, nasty and murderous measures.
The story and its unfolding is the main strength of The Prestige. The movie itself
seems like a magic trick that the Nolan brothers Cristopher and Jonathan (director and scriptwriter, respectively) perform before the audience. To be rewarded with
understanding at the show's end, the viewer must be observant and patient, swinging with the story from one time line to another as it flashes back and forth and left and
right. Just like any magic trick, The Prestige uncovers only as much to see and hear as the viewer needs in order to gradually behold the whole picture. And just like
accomplished magicians, the Nolans allow the audience no time to examine the details of the act in progress, or to question the logic of events, so that viewers may at the end be
engrossed with piecing together the whole puzzle for themselves. It's a movie you may want to see twice over to give you the same satisfaction as you'll get from having
discovered the secrets behind a magic trick.
The Prestige
is more than just an entertaining movie or an amusing magic trick. It is a harsh expose on the moral and ethical state 21st century man is in—a state that we tend to take for granted. It is an invitation to reflect upon human obsessions and their effect on conscience. It is an exploration into the darkest depths of blinding ambition, into the ugly yet seductive craving to beat a rival. What good could a man sacrifice, what loved ones could he betray, what ethical boundaries could he cross, what moral transgressions could he commit, when consumed by the desire to prove himself superior to his enemy? A story about men who have misplaced their conscience in the pursuit of vanity,
The Prestige shows how easy it is to descend into the pit of self-destruction until it's too late to plead for help.
(Date Reviewed: 27 October 2006)
|
