My favorite Nolan film. Also the most overlooked of his, imo. What’s crazy is that the brothers were so committed to their trick that they basically drew the wife crazy bc of his “different personalities”. One was a loving husband and father and the other was in love with Scarlett’s Johannsens character.
Angier(Hugh Jackman) was so obsessed he couldn’t even tell for sure if he was the one in the tank that drowns or the one that continues the performance. The very ending frame when Borden kills Angier suggested to me that was the “original” Angier in the tank. That means Angier died a long time ago with the first time he performed the “trick”. Which means that his “clone” were the ones that survived every-time. That’s just my take.
Like, the last sentences is “you don’t want to work it out, you want to be fooled’. Is the audience being fooled and so was Angier by Borden. Angier didn’t want to study and figure out how Borden did the trick. He took the easy route, one that ultimately led him down a path to his demise. He went to all those lengths only for the original him to die and die again. He fooled himself.
