It’s 2006. Christopher Nolan has successfully made his first Batman movie, and it made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. The Dark Knight has been officially announced, with Heath Ledger set to play the Joker. Meanwhile, Nolan is about to release a movie about rival magicians.

For being one of his best movies, The Prestige is a criminally underdiscussed installment in Nolan’s filmography. It’s both a near-perfect film in its own right, as well as marking a crucial turning point in the wider arc of Nolan’s filmography.

In my own time of studying Nolan’s work, I’ve found that I like to think of it in terms of three distinct eras in his directorial career as divided by the shifts in the broader thematic interests of his films. Unfortunately, this has created a problem where I often refer to a certain “phase” of Nolan’s career as shorthand even though these distinctions are something that I thought up and have never properly explained. So it’s time to explain them!

The first consists of the four films that have already been discussed: Following, Memento, Insomnia, and Batman Begins. The principal theme of these four movies is the questioning of what defines a man, both to himself and to the world, with the undertones of isolation and morality that I’ve unpacked in my previous essays. But just as these eras I’ve distinguished do not have hard lines in between them, these themes do not simply go away as Nolan’s filmography progresses. Rather, they continue to exist in the fabric of his films and their characters as a different narrative takes precedence. The Prestige, then, is the bridge between this and the next stage of Nolan’s career.

The next batch of films gets a little bit trickier, as the latter two Batman films sort of become their own entity. That’s not to say they don’t align with Nolan’s other work during this period, but there’s not as clear of an arc as there is between his non-Batman movies in this era, which are The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar. What defines this period to me is how profoundly Nolan having children of his own impacts the way he approaches storytelling. These three movies all feel semi-autobiographical in a somewhat abstract way, with each being about men who feel torn between their current lives and a “calling” that they can’t seem to ignore the pull of. However, the key to interpreting these movies is not to read them as Nolan compromising his commitment to his family out of his desire to go make more movies, but rather I’d like to point out that these films end with the realization that the protagonists’ families were what was actually more important the whole time. If that sounds cheesy, it’s because it is! Nolan is a very sentimental, heart-on-his-sleeve filmmaker (which is one of the things I love the most about his work). These movies are about the struggle to balance professional passions with familial relationships, but with the understanding that family is always going to be what matters the most, and what actually drives a person at the end of the day.

Interstellar then acts as a perfect segue into what Nolan has been up to since then, which is a shift from thinking specifically about what one owes to their family to what we all owe to future generations. He gets really into the idea of legacy, in both a textual and metatextual way, but also expresses a deep concern for the state of the world as we are leaving it for generations who come after us. This is obviously a huge piece of Interstellar, but it becomes the focal point of Dunkirk, Tenet, and Oppenheimer. And not to make early assumptions, but I’d be very surprised if this isn’t the direction he’s taking The Odyssey in (more on that later).

Now, back to The Prestige. The film follows two magicians — Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) — whose rivalry escalates to deadly heights after a tragic accident during a show. The two become obsessed, dedicating their lives to destroying each other, giving themselves completely over to their work while neglecting anything and anyone else.

There are a couple notable aspects of the film that I want to address before getting into the larger narrative. For one, this is really Nolan’s only proper two-hander. Interstellar comes close, but Murph is ultimately a secondary protagonist to Cooper. With The Prestige, the film is carried by both Borden and Angier. This is interesting because Nolan’s movies are often so singularly focused on their protagonists that the rest of the movie and characters revolve entirely around them. This is true of The Prestige, too, except everything revolves around the pair, and by extension their relationship to one another.

Also worth mentioning is that the performances in this movie are unbelievable. I’ve talked about Nolan as an “actor’s director” a lot, but there’s nothing like seeing that on full display. For one, this movie is impeccably well cast — not just Jackman and Bale, but the entire supporting cast (with the exception of one actress who is almost impressively bad in this film, but who I think is just terribly miscast, so I will respect her by not calling her out by name here). This is far and away Jackman’s best performance, and it’s very high up there for Bale, too

What I love most about this movie, though, is that so much of it is about explaining Nolan’s love for filmmaking. It’s not subtle about it either, which is actually one of the things I find incredibly charming and special about this movie. The metaphor is so heavy-handed that it’s not even really a metaphor. The movie literally opens with Michael Caine explaining what the movie is about while simultaneously telling the audience how to watch it, and then the same monologue is repeated at the end. As if that wasn’t enough, Angier also looks Borden in the eye and says this:

“You never understood why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It’s miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you got to see something really special. You really don’t know? It was the look on their faces…”

That’s Nolan’s entire philosophy! He loves knowing that the audience is putty in his hand and the knowledge that he can make people feel things for characters and scenarios that are entirely fictional. If that wasn’t clear enough, he repeats it all over again in Inception, once again presenting the premise of a protagonist who is able to fabricate an entire emotional journey out of events that only happen in someone’s mind. Inception really hits the nail on the head, though, with the final assertion that even if those events weren’t real, the associated emotions still are, and they stick.

The film addresses both magicians’ strengths and shortcomings, in that it takes both technical skill and showmanship to be successful in their field. Borden has the better tricks with no idea how to dress them up for an audience. Angier’s presentation is stronger, but he doesn't have the same knack for the actual “magic”.

What also serves the filmmaking metaphor is the question of sacrifice, and what one has to give up to be fully devoted to their craft. But the film very pointedly shows that some sacrifices just aren't worth it. Angier and Borden destroy the lives of everyone around them in their pursuit of being the best, and in the end it all comes back to Borden’s relationship with his daughter being the thing that grounds him. This goes back to my point about family being the true driving force at the end of the day, even if it takes this specific protagonist longer to figure that out.

Nolan’s technical mastery of the art of filmmaking and his unique approach to storytelling is what allows him to reach audiences in this way. The Prestige once again employs a non-linear narrative structure, but it also controls every aspect of how its audience engages with it. The movie wants you taking Angier’s side at the beginning, only to realize later on how sinister his behavior actually is. And by the end, you're rooting for Borden to get home to his kid! The film keeps its “twist” in plain sight, waving one hand in front of your face so you miss what’s in the other. Nolan wants you to be fooled into thinking you've figured it all out, as the supposed twist is actually presented to you several times throughout the film. But the genius part is that you get so caught up in the flashiness of Nolan’s own personal magic trick (as the film’s narrative perfectly maps onto the structure of a typical magic trick, as explained at the top of the film) that you miss the darker truth of it that lies just below the surface. You want to be fooled.

The Prestige is “bossy” in the way that many of Nolan’s movies are bossy, giving you an instruction manual on how to watch them. And I understand why that doesn’t appeal to everyone, and it’s a big reason why a lot of people can’t fully connect with his work, but it totally works for me. With that being said, I implore you to give The Prestige a watch even if you’re not a Nolan person. For many reasons, I’ve found that it’s often the film of his that most resonates with even his biggest skeptics, and is also a great film to shape an understanding of what Nolan hopes to accomplish with his work. (Also, it absolutely rules.)

Abracadabra.