A review of another film by one of my favorite directors — Christopher Nolan. This time, we're talking about "The Prestige," released in 2006. This film is definitely in my top 10 favorite movies of all time. The film is complex, so there will be plenty of spoilers ahead, so if you haven't seen it yet, better save this review for later.
The plot follows two magicians who once worked in the same troupe. After a falling out — or rather, after the death of an assistant who also happened to be the wife of one of them — they went their separate ways and started performing independently. They became bitter rivals, their acts growing more refined over time, and each wanted to invent something newer, fresher, and more complicated than the competition. In the end, both set their sights on a disappearing act — or, to be precise, a transportation trick. And they executed it in fundamentally different ways. We'll break down both below.
Every self-respecting magician tries to come up with something new, something that will leave other magicians scratching their heads — that's a line spoken by one of the characters. "Zealous service to the art," "absolute self-sacrifice" — these phrases also appear in the film, and they perfectly complement the characters' personalities.
The film shows people for whom work and competition come before their own lives. They are obsessed and live for their tricks. Angier is ready to die over and over again just to make the trick work, while Borden is willing to share his life with his brother, cut off his own finger, keep a diary with encrypted entries. Who will outplay and outsmart whom? Whose tricks are more impressive and better? Throughout the film, they constantly one-up each other, but both, I'd say, paid too high a price for their craft: Angier's girlfriend dies, Borden's wife takes her own life, and both one of the twin brothers and Angier himself perish.
The film uses two timelines: in one, Borden is in prison while the investigation into Angier's death is underway, and in the other, the main storyline unfolds. Eventually, these threads converge. Time is woven together here as well, but not as intricately as in, say, "Memento."
The very first shot of the film shows a pile of hats. At that point, we don't know what that is — maybe some won't even recognize it — but those hats will later hint at Nikola Tesla's invention, which Angier uses, ultimately leading to Borden ending up behind bars.
So, let's break down Borden's transportation trick — his signature act, which he called "The Prestige," much like the film's title. His trick was, under the hood, extremely simple: as you might have guessed by the film's ending, Borden is not one person but twin brothers who performed the tricks and took turns being either Borden or Mr. Fallon. This was hinted at by a massive pile of clues Nolan scattered throughout the film, yet even the most attentive viewer wouldn't catch it.
For instance, Borden genuinely didn't know which knot he tied when asked about it at the funeral, because at the moment the knot was tied, it was his double doing it, while the other brother came later to say goodbye to the girl.
Or take the moment when Borden found out he was going to be a father and said, "We're having a child, we need to tell Fallon." If Fallon were merely an assistant and not the twin brother, there would be no reason for him to know.
Also, notice the scene when Borden walks his future wife home and she mentions that her landlady doesn't allow her to bring men into the house. Most likely, the twin brother was already inside, because there's no way he could have gotten in that fast, no matter how good a magician he was.
Here's another line that, after watching, points to Fallon being more than just a close friend: "If you're hanged, who'll take care of your daughter?" — "Fallon," Borden replied.
Or consider the example Nolan shows at the very end: why is the blood still flowing as if it just happened? Because that's no longer Borden's hand — it's Mr. Fallon's.
Remember, Borden said: "Zealous service to the art," "absolute self-sacrifice." Everything had to be so that even his wife wouldn't suspect. So that in future tricks they could keep swapping roles, with Mr. Fallon becoming Borden at any time and vice versa. They had to be identical, which meant the second brother had to cut off his fingers too.
The existence of the twin brother perfectly explains why Borden's attitude toward his wife was so inconsistent. Because when it was Borden — that is, the first brother — the relationship was genuine, but when Mr. Fallon stepped in as Borden — it wasn't. One loved his wife, while the other loved Angier's former assistant. "Why are you acting this way, Alfred?" his wife asked at the restaurant. That was the double, not Borden.
Mr. Fallon would occasionally watch over Borden's wife, which she mentioned in the film: "You trust me? Trust Fallon too — he looks after what I hold dear." And he watched because that was the first brother, the one who loved his wife.
When his wife, before her death, called their marriage into question, even then he didn't tell the truth: "Do you love me?" — "Not today." Because today it was the twin brother.
In short, neither the wife nor the mistress knew the truth. They could only vaguely guess from the brothers' behavior toward them. Wrapping up the analysis of Borden's trick, we conclude that he had a twin brother with whom they constantly swapped, living different lives in turns: while one was Alfred Borden, the other was Mr. Fallon. Their disguise was so flawless that after many years, no one ever suspected a thing. Even his wife's death didn't drive the twins apart, and they continued pursuing their life's work.
Now let's talk about Angier's transportation and how he performed his trick. At some point, Angier found a man who looked very much like him — but the man was a drunk, utterly unreliable. Since he had no twin brother, he decided to solve his problem differently — by turning to Nikola Tesla to build him a transportation machine.
Why Tesla? Because Tesla was the cipher key to Borden's diary, which Borden was forced to reveal to Angier when Angier buried Mr. Fallon alive. At the same time, Borden, having a real twin brother, deliberately sent Angier down a false trail — the trail involving Tesla and his machine. Borden never used the machine; he performed his tricks using his brother and sheer obsession. Borden merely wanted to send Angier across the ocean and get rid of him for a while, but he had no idea that Tesla was so brilliant that he would actually invent a transportation machine for Angier.
So now we get to the machine itself and how it worked. Tesla managed to hand over all the developments and documentation before leaving, but the machine had one huge flaw: it didn't transport the existing person — it created an exact copy of him several dozen meters away from the original.
And this is where we recall the opening shot with the hats, where Tesla, testing the machine, wasn't moving them but creating duplicates.
Angier was only partially satisfied with this solution. Yes, the machine could be used for performances, but what about the countless copies that would appear after every run? No one could be allowed to see how the machine worked and reveal the secret.
Angier decided to kill two birds with one stone. So why did he always destroy his doubles created by Tesla's machine? Because there must be no witnesses and no extra questions. Blind assistants were used to remove the bodies — people who saw nothing and knew nothing about what went on backstage.
Why was the trick staged with water under the stage, and why wasn't a trick lock used in that particular tank? Because Angier was waiting for Borden. Angier knew Borden wouldn't leave him alone, and his obsession with uncovering the secret would eventually lead him backstage. He was simply waiting for the very performance where he could be absolutely certain that Borden would be there and would go under the stage.
During one such performance, Angier doesn't appear before the audience, and the entire trick happens beneath the stage, where a rescue operation unfolds to save the drowning Angier. And the audience for that show wasn't the crowd — it was Borden, who rushed to save Angier.
Angier's machine randomly determines who will live, who will receive the applause, and who will end up in the box feeding the fish and worms. And as I mentioned, the blind assistants are only needed so they see nothing and help dispose of the Angier who ends up in the crate.
As for Angier, he knew perfectly well how Tesla's machine worked. So it's safe to say that after a series of tricks, at some point the original Angier ended up in the crate, his body hauled away, while the copy continued to exist. Angier knew this full well but kept performing the trick because his reputation and the chance to take revenge on his eternal nemesis were at stake.
And one last thing to discuss about Angier's secret — answering the question of who Lord Caldlow is, the man whose interests are represented by the lawyer who visited Angier in prison. That is Angier's new identity. This time, he's gone underground. Revenge is complete, the name of the Great Angier no longer exists, and everyone believes he's dead.
However, by the film's ending, we see that one of the brothers, the one who survived, comes and kills Mr. Caldlow, avenging his brother, and it's at that moment we learn the full truth about the "Prestige" trick from both magicians. And if one of them used a machine that killed the original, the other simply used his twin brother.
Undoubtedly, this is one of the most fascinating films: a convoluted plot, a great cast. For me, this film has practically no flaws or weak points. Maybe there's no action here at all and the pace is slow, but I've already watched it 3–4 times and would gladly watch it again.
