Mini Film Review – The Prestige

Yesterday I watched The Prestige; and it was very intriguing! Directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and Michael Caine; The Prestige is a Mystery Thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. The film follows the exploits of two 19th century magicians trying to pull off the ultimate trick, whilst also trying to foil the other, leading to tragic events. The film is somewhat mirroring Inception in it’s setup and storytelling, taking time to really become clearer as to what the story involves. The film has a habit of switching timelines at a second’s notice, so is hard to follow early on, but eventually does become much clearer; that is the storytelling, the great mystery is another thing. It’s rather delightful in how it uses the idea of magic and performance to create an ever in-depth, and side switching story. It creates drama and intrigue to build heroes, and then turn them into the nastiest villains possible, so as the film arcs towards it’s intriguing conclusion, you don’t know who is good and who is bad, and leaves that sort of up to you; until the truth is finally revealed! It uses sleight of hand cinematography to create mystery and drama, but then swoops a hand across your face to introduce amazing suggestions of science fiction, to really throw you off your senses. But in that true Christopher Nolan way, it’s the subtleties that both play tricks with your mind, but also reveal the stone cold truth, but waits till the very end to tell you how it all worked. And in addition, Magicians are nothing without their glamorous assistants; which in this case include: Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, Scarlett Johansson, Piper Perabo, and David Bowie. A very interesting mystery thriller, but with a very intriguing delivery!