The lines between science, magic and madness are blurred in this classy period thriller.
The lines between science, magic and madness are blurred in this classy period thriller. It’s a tale of rival magicians going to extreme lengths to create the perfect trick, with a small but key role for David Bowie. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are the mismatched leads – both intense but in wildly contrasting ways – with great support from Michael Caine and Rebecca Hall in particular. For some, the story’s resort to genuinely inexplicable turns was a cheat, but that’s the whole point: the ‘prestige’ of the film is that it doesn’t obey the rules of the story you thought you were going to see.