The Prestige: A Magical Disappointment

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on October 26, 2006.

One of the advantages of being married is that your spouse can alert you to how wrong you are on any given issue. Take Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006). Last weekend, my wife and I (along with a few others) saw this latest Hollywood blockbuster starring a litany of cinematic heavyweights (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johanson, and Michael Caine). During the screening, I became entranced while trying to understand the twists and turns of the plot and the motivations of the characters. I left the theater feeling mildly confused about one or two plot points, but nevertheless happy and excited. On the way home, however, my wife informed me of why she didn't particularly care for the movie, and I ultimately had to conclude that her observations were more valid — so much so that I'm now a bit upset at how The Prestige snookered me, leading me on a cinematic journey of high style and low substance.

I suppose that it is appropriate that I feel a little duped by this movie, since its plot does revolve around magicians. Michael Caine plays Cutter, an older magician who serves as a mentor to Rupert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Bordon (Bale). Initially, Rupert is portrayed as a more "conventional" magician: he doesn't mind performing Cutter's "old" tricks, so long as the audience is satisfied, and he also doesn't mind adhering to Cutter's more rigid code of safety. Alfred, on the other hand, is bored and wants to try more daring (and dangerous) feats. After a horrible on-stage accident, Rupert and Alfred part ways and become bitter rivals. In one sense, The Prestige is simply a long series of tit-for-tat revenge scenarios in which Rupert and Alfred try to outdo each other's tricks while disrupting/destroying the other's performances. In addition, by the end of the movie, the audience sees that the magicians' lives are rooted not just in revenge but also in obsession. Magic becomes not just a profession, as it was for Cutter (who probably has the most reasonable perspective out of all of the characters), but an all-encapsulating way of life that destroys everything in its wake.

Unfortunately, as my wife sagely noted, The Prestige's depiction of revenge is very trite. According to Hollywood formula, revenge is supposed to be an all-consuming passion that eventually destroys one's entire life, and Nolan follows the playbook to the letter. However, other than this single theme—which is presented in essentially the same way throughout the film—Nolan offers nothing substantive. Whether intentionally or not, The Prestige is simply an exercise in cinematic style, rather than substance. The acting is decent, the costumes and set designs are well done, and the different magic tricks (as well as their accompanying explanations) are fun to watch. However, after the exuberance of 128 minutes, we are left with nothing to chew on, nothing to think about.

This may seem to some like an unfair indictment. After all, what is wrong with a film that produces two hours of mere escapism? Not all films have to involve post-screening meditation and discussion, do they? Of course not. However, my initial impression of The Prestige was that of a more substantive work. It was not marketed as a simple exercise in excessive style (e.g., Moulin Rouge), nor was it advertised as something that was completely devoid of substance, meant solely for "mindless entertainment" (e.g., Eight Legged Freaks). The Prestige was supposed to be "better" than that, but at the end, it proved nothing more than stylistic exercise. As such, I felt a little duped. While I appreciate and enjoy some movies even more after thinking about them (e.g., the excellent Junebug), The Prestige had the opposite effect on me: the more I thought about it, the more duped I felt.

(A Brief Exception: Nolan's addition to the plot of the legendary engineer Nikola Tesla, played by David Bowie, was fun and refreshing. If Nolan had played more with Tesla's popular status as a brilliant-inventor-turned-mad-scientist—or, better yet, had made an entire biopic about the man—he would have given us a more interesting/edifying project.)

All of this has me wondering whether Nolan is falling into the same trap as M. Night Shymalan. Both men experienced critical and commercial success with relatively early films—Nolan's breakthrough was Memento, while Shymalan's was The Sixth Sense—and both seem to have taken a downward trajectory ever since. While Nolan's remake of Insomnia was decent (though not as good as the Norwegian original), his subsequent projects (Batman Begins and The Prestige) have proven disappointing. The Internet Movie Database reports that his next project is yet another Batman movie, which simply indicates that he's taking the path of least resistance. If he's making a lot of money churning out Hollywood formula, then why stop?

In discussing this film further, my wife made another point relevant to Nolan and other young directors. In some cases, there seems to be an inverse relationship between monetary success and artistic quality. Nolan seems unable to maintain his artistic integrity in the face of the financial pressures (temptations?) that come with big Hollywood investments and the need to make those investments grow. Paradoxically, low-budget films with no-name casts may carry less risk since few people will care (or even notice) if they tank. Big-budget productions, on the other hand, require that the director come through with a "sure thing." Alas, Nolan seems stuck in the trap of his own success, and it will be interesting to see whether he ever breaks out of it.