Presto! A Non-Spoilery Rave for 'The Prestige'
This is a slightly expanded but still spoiler-free version of a review I wrote for this week's Boston Phoenix.
Postmodern turns out to have been the wrong word, and world, for the Nolan brothers (director Christopher and screenwriter Jonathan) of MEMENTO fame. In THE PRESTIGE, a Victorian-set sci fi tale of rival magicians in search of the ultimate trick, the Nolans revel in embedded flashbacks, purloined diaries, mad scientists (David Bowie, in a deft cameo), and presto-change-o stagecraft ("Abracadabra!" will never again sound cheesy.) Hugh Jackman, cast as a proto-Vegas showman at first appears to have the meatier role, but it's Christian Bale, as the illusionist whose art blights the lives of those he loves, who makes a darker, deeper impression.
Though the film's slowish pacing, early on, over-indicates how both magicians' marquee misdirection --a disappearing act--will be achieved, The Prestige still pulls off a neat trick of its own. So what if you twig to the how of the deception; what remains is the horror of how any human being could stand it.