Robert Angier In The Prestige

Throughout the movie, The Prestige, Robert Angier goes through many trials that change him to a point where he is an entirely different character who is angry due to his obsessions. Angier would not even hurt a dove, and eventually he is willing to destroy another man’s career and get “his hands dirty.” At the beginning of the movie, he is blissful and optimistic for the future, but by the end, he is cross, and lonely. Angier’s obsessions and unhealthy need for knowledge and vengeance costs him so much. His obsessions make him a different person from what he is at the beginning of the film.

At the beginning of the movie Angier is a very happy man, who is also seeking to have a great future. He had someone to make a potential family with,

We notice that his obsession with Bordon’s trick, “The Transporting Man,” starts to ruin many of his relationships leaving him very lonely. After the death of his wife, he meets Olivia, his assistant for his new show. They create feelings for each other and have a very strong connection. Angier feels the need to discover the trick so badly he sends Olivia to go and discover it for him; this ruins his entire relationship with Olivia furthering his character development as a livid man. Another relationship that has been ruined through his obsession over this trick his the relationship between Angier and Cutter. Angier decides to go to Colorado to find out the secret to “The Transporting Man” he asks Cutter to come with him but, Cutter denies this due to the fact that “obsession is a young man’s game.” This tears their relationship apart for a long time until Angier is the one to approach him at the end of the movie. The obsession with the trick breaks his relationships with all the people he loves; it even creates the inability for him to make

His tactics and ways of hurting Borden get worse and worse throughout the movie. It starts as just ruining Bordon’s magic show and making people laugh at him, but the ruining of Borden’s shows turn into things that can potential ruin his entire life. When Angier shoots Borden’s hand during the “Bullet Catch” trick it gives Borden a useless hand because of the medical findings that still need to discover in this time. This useless hand gave Borden the need to make sacrifices. The secret to the “Transporting Man” trick is almost ruined. The sacrifices that Borden gives for this trick ruins some of the other aspects of his life, for example the mistrust between him and his wife, but at least saves his magic show. This obsession is so severe that Angier spends time and focuses all of his energy on ruining Borden’s life and career, because he took away Angier’s future. In one of the later scenes of the movie, for example, Borden is out with his family and when Angier sees him, he realizes just how much Borden has taken away from him. Borden has the future that Angier had been dreaming about in the beginning of the film. This fueled Angier’s need for ruining Borden’s life, it was not about his wife anymore it was something more