The Prestige

A film set in London at the end of the nineteenth century. Two young magicians work in the same show. There is an accident during a trick and one holds the other responsible. From there the film is a feud. Each sabotages the other's act, sits in the other's audience, steals tricks and pays for it. At the centre is a single illusion. A man walks through one door and comes out at the far end of the theatre; both perform it, but not by the same method. What the narrative is interested in is not magic but cost: the film says at the outset that every trick has a hidden price and the audience never sees it. The structure is built like a trick as well. Two journals are read inside each other, time moves back and forth, and the first scene of the film is really part of the end. The narration warns you outright: you are looking, but you are not seeing. The film does not hide its answer, it shows it several times. One of the two lines turns to science. It goes to Nikola Tesla, and there the narrative departs from realism; that departure is the film's most argued-over feature. David Bowie plays Tesla. He turned the part down at first; the director flew to New York to persuade him, and Bowie had not been in front of a camera for some time. The source is a novel by Christopher Priest. The book's framing story, which reaches into the present, was dropped entirely. The production was fitted between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and shot quickly with much of the same crew. Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and Andy Serkis are in the cast. Christopher Nolan directed and wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan Nolan. Who it is for: anyone who likes films built like a puzzle. Who it is not for: anyone who wants to attach to a character; neither man is likeable and the film makes no effort to fix that.