Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this dark period piece about dueling magicians includes several violent deaths: two by drowning (the victims' frightened faces are visible), two by hanging, and another by shooting. Other violence includes one man shooting another's hand (there's some blood, and fingers are lost); the revelation that a bird has been smashed into a bloody pancake during a trick to simulate its "disappearance"; the accidental smashing of a woman's hand in a similar trick; and a man submitting to having his fingers chopped off (the action isn't shown, but the noise of the chop and his facial expression are jarring). Other than the violence, there's not too much to worry about -- a little sexual activity (mostly just kissing), fairly mild language, and some drinking.
Families can discuss the competition between Robert and Alfred. How does the movie show the rising stakes of their conflict? How can you tell that the audiences within the film love the magicians' illusions? Why are the magicians driven to go to such extreme lengths? How does their relationship with the more-experienced Cutter affect them? Is magic as popular today as it was in the late 1800s/early 1900s? Why or why not? Is there such a thing as real magic, or is it all illusion?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
"Are you watching closely?" With this question, THE PRESTIGE (based on the novel by Christopher Priest) invites viewers to participate -- or at least to be aware of their participation -- in its storytelling. A smart, intriguing tale of deceit and obsession, Christopher Nolan's movie focuses on the competition between magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) in turn-of-the-20th-century London.
Their years-long contest is narrated by an "ingénieur" (magic-trick designer) named Cutter (Michael Caine), who begins by describing the three parts of a trick (the Pledge, the Turn, and the Prestige), asserting that the audience must participate in the trick -- indeed, must want to be fooled -- for it to work.
The Prestige offers a series of tricks as connected pleasures; but they have less to do with plot twists (which are sometimes obvious) than details of character and performance. Robert and Alfred's competition is established by their differences of personality: Cockney-accented Alfred is blunt and focused only on his art, while Robert is a lesser magician but a more prodigious showman, with acute ambition and a lovely wife, Julia (Piper Perabo).
Though the magicians initially work together, an on-stage accident leads to conflict and a battle of one-upsmanship for revenge. They compete over losses, tricks, and audiences, each reading the other's stolen journal at different points in time in order to decipher his rival's meanings and mechanics. (Within the film's overarching timeframe, one man is on trial for the murder of the other, their efforts to outdo one another knotted into a complex flashbacks-within-flashbacks puzzle.)
Robert and Alfred make no bones about their efforts to steal one another's tricks (it was apparently common practice among magicians of that era to steal or purchase tricks). Robert goes so far as to name his version of "The Transported Man" (Alfred's crowd-pleasing finale) "The New Transported Man"; Alfred, in turn, then renames his show "The Original Transported Man." This trick and its titling are at the center of the film's thematic concerns with replication, movement, and deception. As the mechanical possibilities for tricks expand and shift -- indeed, as the Victorian Age gives way to the Machine Age -- the men are increasingly hard-pressed to keep up.
As they seek out more elaborate and astounding illusions, the magicians also begin to imagine intersections between science and art, performance and truth. "The secret," instructs Alfred, "impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything." His very sweet wife Sarah (Rebecca Hall) wonders at his dedication, her measly paycheck supporting them as he ponders his future, increasingly removed from her and their young daughter, Jess (Samantha Mahurin). Sarah sees her husband "split" between two selves, a divide made more obvious when Alfred takes a lover, Robert's former assistant Olivia (Scarlett Johansson).
The men's contest turns increasingly aggressive, with each growing more isolated and spiteful. Robert's efforts to reproduce The Transported Man take him to Colorado Springs, where inventor Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) is conducting experiments involving wild displays of electrical charges; he and his faithful assistant Alley, (Andy Serkis), are locked up inside a spooky lab in the mountains that evokes Victor Frankenstein's.
The fact that Tesla runs into trouble with a couple of shady types referred to as "Edison's men" raises the specter of commercial competition, yet another layer in the film's study of illusion and replication. The magicians chase after control of their illusions, performances that fool audiences who want to be fooled. They believe that their competition depends on knowing each other's secrets, on not being fooled. But they are ever fooled, as each believes he is the more original prestidigitator. Ironically, this makes them, as Olivia observes angrily, "perfect for each other."
Families who like this movie might also want to see Batman Begins, also starring Bale and directed by Nolan, The Illusionist, or Sleepy Hollow. Another good take on the subject is Glen David Gold's novel Carter Beats the Devil.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentSome kissing and passionate embracing by a married couple and later by a different, adulterous couple; women in showy, bustiers on magicians' assistants; adultery. |
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ViolenceExplicit deaths by hanging, gunfire, and drowning (all are only briefly shown, but it's clear enough what's going on); bodies (human and cat) zapped by electric currents; hand is shot, resulting in blood and missing fingers; fingers chopped off hand (as a sign of commitment and "sacrifice" to art/life of magic); fall through a trapdoor leads to injury and a permanent limp. |
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LanguageMild profanity: a couple of instances of "s--t," as well as "damn" and "ass." |
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Social BehaviorCharacters lie to each another incessantly, as well as commit murder and suicide; deception (in magic tricks and in audiences' desire to be fooled) as a theme. |
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CommercialismThematic: Magicians promote their own shows by crashing other magicians' shows with placards. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrinking to the point of drunkenness (the result of frustration in neglected wife and ambitious magician). |
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