Jack Attack Tuesday

The Prestige’s Ending Is Bullshit

Chris Nolan is my boy.  Through and through, I really believe he has one of the best film resumes out there right now, standing alongside Tarantino and PTA.  While the former two innovate through their scripting, nostalgia and art-house film styles, Nolan has been taking the blockbuster and putting it on notice, even innovating in technical ways that other filmmakers scoff at.  If there is one film in his oeuvre that has always bothered me, it’s been The Prestige.  I remember seeing it on the big screen and calling the twist halfway through the film due to Nolan’s complete ignorance towards the lighting on a certain character in key scenes.  Overall, I do really like The Prestige and believe the storytelling techniques at work, coupled with the quality of filmmaking Nolan is displaying combine for a really entertaining film, albeit with one severe misstep that forever tarnished my view of the film.  I’ve always hated the ending of this movie, but not for the reasons you might think.  I truly believe the ending to The Prestige is Nolan’s worst piece of writing, not from the actual physical nature of what’s being said, but rather the conclusion of the story and where the characters are left off by the ending.  In order to properly explain this, I have to start at the beginning with a quick recap.  So here goes:

MASSIVE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK

The Prestige is the story, to me anyways, of two magicians competing for the spotlight and how that competition defined their lives, and ultimately dominated them.  Their journeys take them down very different paths, but ultimately they both are proven to be two sides of the same coin.  Angier, played by Hugh Jackman, is the more cunning, possibly more affable personality, clearly more focused on showmanship than actual craft.  Borden, played by Christian Bale, lacks the showmanship but excels at the craft in ways Angier can’t quite wrap his head around.  When we first meet these characters, they are audience marks for a magician, helping with an act where Angier’s wife, played by Piper Perabo, is tied to a line, hoisted over a tank of water and dropped in.  After a minute, she is to escape, hence the trick.  The second time we see this performed, it is suggested that Borden ties a different knot, thereby causing Angier’s wife to drown and starting the chain of events that continue to define the men through the years.  It is here where the film, in my eyes, very clearly sets up Angier as the protagonist and Borden as the antagonist.  However, the script pulls you back and forth so many times it’s difficult to determine who is in the right, even I will admit that, by the end of the film.

Through various circumstances, a lot happens in the interim.  Angier becomes obsessed with getting a better trick than Borden, and Borden becomes obsessed with Angier’s tricks getting better.  The two men’s obsessions get the better of them, as Angier wastes years, time and money trying to find the answers to the mystery of how Borden does his Transported Man trick, all the while Borden begins having trouble at home with his wife and newborn daughter.  Eventually, Borden’s wife hangs herself because she believes she is living with two different men, referring to Borden’s continual mood swings.  The truth to this is that she is living with two men, Borden and his double, created in Tesla’s machine.  We learn in the final moments of the film that the two men shared each others’ lives, taking turns back and forth, to be the absolute best showmen they could be.  Borden loses sight of the effect this has on his wife, and it leads to her death.  This underscores Borden as the supreme asshole of the film.  Not only did his actions lead to the death of his wife, they led to the death of Angiers’ wife years earlier.  Beyond anything else, it’s difficult to get past these two pieces of the story and still root for Borden.

Now here’s where the film really gets me.  Angier devises a plan, seen in the opening shots, to get Borden sent to prison.  It works and he uses the psuedonym Lord Cordlow to buy up Borden’s tricks and adopt his daughter.  In my mind, while this does seem a bit deviant, considering Borden’s transgressions I still side with Angier on this.  Yes, taking a little girl’s father away is unspeakable, but so is leading to the murder of two women and causing a life to be irreconcilably damaged in the process.  Angier planned on caring for her and giving her a good home, and I believe he would have.  Michael Caine’s character, however, sees that this is what he’s done and takes steps to find out Borden’s copy is still alive and needs to reunite him with his daughter.  And, of course, this happens, after Borden murders Angier.  This is unapologetic bullshit.  Asking an audience to get on one man’s side after this entire story is ridiculous and should have been handled differently.  I would never make the case that Angier is the better man, as again, I believe the story pushes these characters beyond what any normal, good men would do, but to say that Borden gets to live happily ever after with Uncle Alfred and his daughter is fucking stupid.  It’s a happy ending that makes no sense, and it never has.  You know what ending would have made sense, though?  A bullet catch.

Think about it for a minute.  Angier’s final speech was all about the “looks on their faces”, and making the audience applaud.  Angier, while driven by anger and guilt, wanted to make Borden pay for what he did, but Borden wanted and achieved the same against Angier.  If the point of the story was about these men and their decades long struggle to be the better magician, wouldn’t a bullet catch be the ultimate example of Angier having a trick that is at least equal in skill and admiration to Borden’s cloned life?  In writing this, there are a few holes in this ending as well, and obviously the movie would have to use a slightly different structure, but overall The Prestige ends up being a fable for family and duality, but not with the characters anyone was expecting.  You’d think that after a rant like this I am not a fan of this movie but it’s quite the opposite.  I like this movie enough to care about the fact that the ending doesn’t match the quality of everything before it.  If you haven’t seen this since it came out, I’d urge you to do so and really pay attention to the ending this time, especially with the way in which they set the film up.

I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone but Law (that drunk asshole) and hope you all enjoy it whichever way you want to.  Binge on!