Best known for his intricate science fiction plots, Christopher Nolan has repeatedly challenged viewers to rack their brains and try to build their own theories about this or that part of the story, eventually revealing their cards and showing whether they were right or whether the director managed to pull off his own trick again.
However, Nolan includes such tricks not only in films for which he came up with the script himself and wrote it from scratch - a particularly attentive viewer might have noticed something similar in The Prestige, based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. And although Nolan himself has never said whether he did it intentionally, in the hit psychological thriller, a hint of the final plot twist is hidden in one of the very first scenes.
The trick scene about the disappearance of a bird hints at the existence of Alfred Boden's twin brother
Despite the fact that Christopher Nolan, together with his brother Jonathan, significantly reworked the plot of the novel to create the film, the idea remains the same. The plot centers on two magicians-illusionists Robert and Alfred, whose friendly competition went so far that over time they both became sworn enemies, constantly trying to disrupt each other's performances.
Thus, in his circles, Robert is famous for astounding his viewers with a trick in which a bird disappears in a cage - in one of the first scenes of the film, he shows his competitor's wife Sarah and her nephew this very trick. The effect, however, is achieved only when the boy asks where the brother of the bird that reappeared in the cage went. It is this moment that anticipates the very shocking plot twist in the finale, where it turns out that all this time Alfred had a twin brother, with whom they pretended to be one person.
The Prestige has become one of Christopher Nolan's most prestigious films
Although the director has at least a dozen commercially successful works and films that have received several Oscar statuettes, The Prestige marked the time when Nolan had just established himself as one of the best directors, having previously made Batman Begins, Insomnia and Memento. The Prestige, in turn, grossed more than $100 million at the box office and was nominated for an Oscar twice.
