The death of Angier’s wife (Piper Perabo) during an earlier trick drove a wedge between the two men. He asks Cutter and Olivia both how he does it, and they both respond that it's a double. But even through that, he is reunited with the daughter he believed would end up in Angier/Caldlow's care, and he's finally rid of his rival. From that moment forward, the two are mortal enemies. A lot of self-sacrifice." And go watch The Prestige again if you haven't in a while. Robert Angier, his beloved wife, Julia McCullough; and Alfred Borden are friends and assistants of a magician. Cutter and Borden are working-class people, whose jobs depend on their own success, but Angier comes from money and doesn't feel the need to engage. The end of the novel in fact verifies that the prestige material (the duplicate body) while rigid and immobile, possess a soul. The Prestige is a 2006 mystery thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Christopher Priest.It follows Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in London at the end of the 19th century.Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they engage in competitive one-upmanship, with fatal results. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Did he really die in the tank of water that night? The "magic" of the movie's twist is that nearly every character in the movie—everyone the audience is conditioned to understand as intelligent and sober-minded—knows Borden (Christian Bale) uses a double for his trick. It won't, of course, but the point of the scene is that Fallon's near-death encounter leads one of the Borden twins to arrive to a dinner date with Sarah stinking drunk with Olivia along for the ride. Tesla finally relents, and creates a machine that allows Angier to clone himself. It's not surprising that the ending to The Prestige is still frequently discussed on message boards and in chat rooms nearly a decade after the film's release. - The Prestige When this leads to an actor named Gerald Root, Root’s ability to function as Angier means he is Angier. The Prestige is hard to pigeonhole into any specific genre as it walks the fine line between mystery, drama, suspense and fantasy. In fact, his only contribution is to say that "any trick can be duplicated." 12. share. 2/19/16 12:00AM. Read on! Of course, as Cutter says in the final bit of narration: Now, you're looking for the secret. The audience is primed to think that this narration refers to Borden and Angier, based on the premise of the movie, but that's not right. The Prestige’s ending is packed to the brim with twists and turns. Until one of the Borden twins fall in love with Olivia, they're united in their desires. Borden argues that "a real magician tries to invent something new, something that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over." Angier tells Borden that he never understood why they did this, that "the audience knows the truth. This is also when Fallon enters the picture, prompting concern from Sarah that they don't have enough to pay him. "It's unthinkable... Borden saw it at once, but I couldn't fathom it. While it's true that the science-fiction addition is a surprise, it serves a few important points. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking." There's the fact that Angier dies symbolically this way because it's how his wife died. He tells Sarah, "I almost lost something very precious to me," implying that either he or the other Borden twin almost died, but regardless, the blatant appearance of Olivia pushes Sarah towards alcoholism—and eventually suicide when she can't stand the lies anymore. ReelBlend cohost. Rian Johnson's action-packed underground hit Looper was a breath of fresh air for the sci-fi genre, but the ending left a lot of people in a tizzy. I like being able to tell the difference, it makes the days it is true mean something.". Isn't he? Backstage after Angier's wife escapes the water tank for the first time, Borden, Angier, and Cutter discuss their different philosophies for magic. The Ending Of The Prestige Explained. Finally, Angier can pull off his magic trick. ... That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"." They achieve success, a family, and the art that they dreamed of, but once they fracture, it leads to strife. It unfolds like a magic show, showing us the props, the assistants… we know where it’s heading, but not how it’ll get there. The ending monologue is just a reminder from the beginning that magic is better the less you understand. With Christopher Nolan's Tenet coming up, fans are reliving some of his most cryptic work like Memento, Inception and The Prestige.The magician war in The Prestige stands tall, with Hugh Jackman's Robert Angier engaging in a rivalry with Christian Bale's Alfred Borden. He was Fallon, and Fallon was Borden, two men sharing one life. When asked about his final words, he responds "Abracadabra" and is dropped to his death. Angier's first move against Borden involves a loaded pistol, so the narrator's implication that the "two young men" who never intended harm is Borden and Angier is dismissed within the next 30 minutes of screentime. Once again, he never mentions the audience—only the art, the sacrifice. Movie junkie. The story of a rapidly escalating feud between rival magicians in the 1800s, The Prestige proved Christopher Nolan wasn't a director to ignore. And I tumbled down a spectacular Reddit hole of alternate theories. First, Tesla and Edison's rivalry mirrors Angier and Borden, continuing the motif of reflections and doubles that pervades the movie. Here’s a breakdown of everything that happens in the film’s ending. Brynne Ramella May 17, 2020. It's the closest the two brothers get to openly speaking to each other, with Borden apologizing for the way his affair with Olivia led to Sarah's suicide. Mike D'Angelo. The illusion requires self-sacrifice. In that, the story becomes a never-ending stream of wonder for the mind: one can never tell exactly where the story is going to lead next, becoming more and more as … It's a key foreshadowing of why Angier will be the only one who can't believe Borden uses a double. An example of plot twist and surprise ending in The Prestige. The surviving Borden, the one who confesses to Angier the secret, is the one who loves Sarah. We should be listening to these characters, but we're too caught up in Angier's passion. He has a twin brother he keeps hidden away. Jonny won’t agree with me on this one – read his takedown here – but I love magical movies like The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006). Of all the plot points in the movie,Tesla and his cloning machine receive the most derision. Even when Angier reads his diary, Borden writes that "How often I've fought with myself over that night... one half of me swearing blind that i tied a simple slip knot... the other half convinced that I tied the Langford double. He ends the scene saying, "It's the only way to escape all this, you know?" The Prestige ending theory (SPOILERS) This isn't fully developed but I think it's interesting to think about: At the end of the movie, we see what we interpret to be hundreds of Angier's clones from the machine floating dead in the glass boxes...but what if they aren't Angier's clones? He drops a "clone" in the tank, allows Borden to be captured at the scene of the crime, knows that his rival will be charged with murder, and then chooses to disappear. He disappears, but that's not magic. It's a direct plea to the audience, straight from writers Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan (even more doubles), that the ability to trick the audience, to make them imagine a world like their own, but different (maybe one with cloning machines) exists right at their fingertips. Later, Angier will show off the trick for his wife Julia, but he does it half-mockingly, in disbelief that anyone could or would want to do that. The Prestige follows a rivalry waged between one-time partners and stage illusionists Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). She tells Borden early on in the film that she can tell he doesn't always mean it when he says he loves her. We want to be fooled. What Does The Ending Of The Prestige Really Mean? It pushes him to send Olivia to infiltrate Borden's trust, leading to disaster for everyone.