The Big Whatsit

Ladies and gentlemen, this next article is one that contains major spoilers. Anyone in the audience who would be irrevocably damaged by reading an article that reveals The Prestige’s ending should leave now, for when I tell you that what follows gives everything away, you will understand the seriousness of the disclosures involved.

Once again, it’s Academy Awards time, and as usual the films heavily tipped to win by no means reflect the best of the year. Take this year’s bunch - Babel, The Departed, The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima and Little Miss Sunshine. Granted, I haven’t seen the latter pair, but I did catch the American alternative to Clint Eastwood’s Far East war flick, Flags of our Fathers, and found it to be fine on a technical level, yet lacking in terms of warmth. The Departed is some distance from Martin Scorsese’s best work, and though I enjoyed Babel it remains an incredibly worthy effort, as though every cell of it begs to be loved by those who dish out awards. That leaves Frears’ The Queen, the one I would like to see claim the award on the night, though personally I think it will be Uncle Marty’s turn to clean up. A relatively small film, The Queen is a study of HRH that gets her exactly right, from Helen Mirren’s uncannily spot on portrayal to the sense of distance her eponymous characters feels from just about everything, and everyone. Sympathetic yet heartfelt, I really enjoyed it, and suspect Liz Windsor probably approved at the same time.

For all that, I don’t think it was the best. If I could choose the high point of 2006, it would be The Prestige, Christopher Nolan’s brilliant story of two feuding magicians set in late nineteenth century London. It’s not often that a film blows me away in quite this way, where the first viewing leaves me gibbering in gobsmacked admiration, and then I have to watch it all over again to explore all the nuances I missed initially. The Matrix is one of a select few others that provoked a similar reaction.

I could ramble on for several thousand words about why I like it so much. Instead, I’d like to home in on a few select areas of strength, in the belief that those reading this will already have seen it and won’t mind having the finer points rehashed for their approval. If you haven’t, and for some reason you’re still here, wondering what I could possibly say to persuade you to catch it for yourself, STOP READING NOW. Go away, watch it, and then return to this page to see what you think of my views. I beg you, don’t ruin the movie by finding out what happens on a second-rate blog. Your viewing pleasure deserves better, trust me.

Let’s begin. Perusing the brief DVD review in Empire magazine, it seems the critic believed The Prestige’s ending to be a failing. True, it transforms a nice potboiler about warring wizards into something close to science fiction, but I think that’s a massive strength, and an incredibly bold move from Nolan. Put yourself in the mind of the first time viewer - you’re trying to guess how Robert Angier somehow pulls off a more impressive ‘Transported Man’ trick than Alfred Borden. You will not in a million years come up with the answer. It’s impossible, surely, and that’s exactly what it turns out to be, as the cloning machine of Tesla that forces Angier to kill himself again and again gives heartbreaking proof of the lengths he’s prepared to go to, the degree to which he’s willing to get his hands dirty. This revelation utterly overshadows the reality behind Borden’s own stunt, a more conventional Hollywood twist that seasoned watchers might just about see coming. Angier’s actions provoke a genuine heartstopping reaction. What sort of man would go as far as this? It’s at this point the viewer learns that Borden might not be a good bloke exactly, but in trying to be the better magician, Angier has turned himself into nothing less than a monster.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian accused The Prestige of being dull. It’s anything but. Over 128 minutes, via Nolan’s trademark playing around with the plot’s timeline, its twists, turns and leaks are steadily peeled away. We don’t know any more than we need to, until we need to know it, and if that means the story jumps from nearly its climactic moment to points closer to the start, then it’s all building up to the final reveal, the stunning closing scenes that are worthy of any magic trick. The Prestige successfully pulls of its own prestige, showing the audience something it couldn’t possibly have seen before. Like the aforementioned The Matrix, it works meticulously to capture our imagination throughout. Whether you’re watching the complicated relationship between Borden and his wife that the latter necessarily doesn’t understand, trying to work out whether the anonymous Fallon can possibly be more than Borden’s assistant, soaking up the texture of the London scenes and the fabulous costumes, assessing the significance of Tesla’s machine, or simply enjoying the marvellous performances, there’s easily enough to distract you from the clues building up to the film’s frankly unbelievable end. Dull? Those endless shows churned out on Sky that tell you how magicians perform their tricks are the model of tedium. This is the opposite.

Another criticism is its lack of depth, especially where the characters are concerned. This is a brilliantly acted movie. You’d expect Christian Bale to be excellent, and he is, as is the reliable Michael Caine. However Hugh Jackman is surprisingly superb as Angier. Compare his easy going young self with the broken, aged cripple who limps through the film’s last acts. He’s literally suffered for his art, and you see all that in his cynical, weary face. Somehow, a good looking man has descended into hate-filled ugliness, directed both at himself and Borden. The only weak point is Scarlett Johansson, who doesn’t have enough to do in order to flesh out her character as the duplicitous lover of both magicians. Either that, or she’s not a very good actor, but that’s a debate that no doubt runs to several thousand pages on a movie messageboard somewhere near you.

As far as I’m concerned, The Prestige is a flick that has everything. Underneath its trickery and technical excellence, it is a straightforward melodrama, and unlike, say Babel, doesn’t attempt to say too much about the human condition, unless, er, you’re a famous magician locked in a deadly rivalry of increasing odds. But then there’s nothing wrong with that. Good films are good films, no matter how deeply they try to peer into your soul, and that’s exactly what The Prestige is - damn good stuff.

To end this blog on an Oscar note, I took a look at recent winners of the Best Picture award, and matched these with movies that I thought were the best of the same years. My picks are nothing more than an opinion, of course, and I’m sure at times I’ve gone for the populist option. All the same, this comes from someone who still believes, 25 years on, that E.T. should have kicked Gandhi’s arse - after all, which one gets watched and talked about more these days? Enjoy Oscar night. I’ll be in bed, and rightly so, and not just because my tips rarely come close to winning anything, as the following table shows: