5 out of 5

Director: Christopher Nolan

This movie has guts. The Prestige is not truly “five-star material” in the sense that I walked away feeling like I had witnessed genius, but, BUT… the amazing skill that it took to piece this together, and the guts to play it out slowly, it just works marvelously. Nolan has played with narrative structure in some other films, but here it is shockingly complex and yet simply displayed – a narrative within a narrative. When I would stop to think about it I would laugh at how layered it was, and how that could’ve fallen apart in another film-maker’s hands. Now you can play this up as a twist movie if you like, but the cards are dealt pretty plainly and if you’re hunting for that surprise then you might be disappointed. But that only underlines the theme of the film moreso, and with some great performances from ALL the actors (even if Scarlet’s accent was a little sloppy here and there), the layering layering layering of themes and ideas and structure is just a joy to witness. Yes, I found the last five minutes slightly underwhelming, but no matter. You had me glued to the screen for two hours prior to that.