"The Prestige": Rival Victorian conjurers cast a spell

On a leaf-tossed hillside, we see a strange crop: a slew of top hats, black and glossy, strewn loosely on the ground as if growing like mushrooms. It's silent, and we hear only the dry rustle of an autumn breeze, stirring the leaves. Then, a whisper, male and knowing: "Are you watching closely?"

This is the alluring entry point of Christopher Nolan's period drama "The Prestige," an assured bonbon of a film that's thoroughly and deliciously entertaining. It's about light and shadow; about time-bending and plot-twisting and sleight of hand; about the way a frock coat and a dusty spotlight transform a street kid into a gentleman before our eyes. Marred only by an awkward, disappointing ending (you don't have to watch too closely to see it coming), "The Prestige" creates a magic of its own.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"The Prestige," with Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Piper Perabo, Andy Serkis, David Bowie. Directed by Christopher Nolan, from a screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, based on the novel by Christopher Priest. 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing images. Several theaters.

Based on the sprawling novel by Christopher Priest, the film is the tale of two competing magicians in turn-of-the-century London. Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) were once friends and colleagues, but after an illusion goes wrong with tragic results, the men part bitterly. As their fame increases, their rivalry builds — Borden is the better magician, Angier the superior showman — leading to desperate measures, ever-more-elaborate illusions and twisting side roads, one involving the maverick scientist Nikola Tesla (played, with great restraint, by David Bowie).

Better to know no more than that about the plot; its twists are best experienced fresh. But "The Prestige" is much more than its story. Nolan, the skilled director of "Memento," "Insomnia" and "Batman Begins," knows more than most how to hold an audience in the palm of his hand; it's almost a magic trick, like those practiced by his characters. Jackman and Bale (both looking devilishly handsome, as magicians should — the better to distract the eye) stride confidently through the movie, creating characters far from our world. Scarlett Johansson, who seems born for Victorian frills, breaths life into what could have been a candy-box figure. And Michael Caine, playing an aging creator of stage illusion, lends his soft-leather voice to the mix as he watches from the sidelines. "Obsession," he observes knowingly, "is a young man's game."

All this is captured in the flickering, warm tones of cinematographer Wally Pfister, a Nolan regular, in burnished colors and come-hither darkness. Magic isn't always easy to come by on screen, but "The Prestige" (like "The Illusionist" before it — who knew this would be the year of turn-of-the-century magicians?) finds plenty in that mysterious art where, in Tesla's words, "people are happy to be mystified."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com