Warning DOES contain spoiler so don't read until after you've seen the movie.

I just watched this last night on DVD and really enjoyed it. I'm so easily disappointed in movies these days. Disappointed in most of them. Big budget. Big name actors. Hugely technical stunts. Ho Hum. What was the moral of that story? I often find myself asking at the end of the movie - what was the moral of that? What message can I identify with in the real world?

This seemed like a delightfully creative little fictionalisation to me. The movie has been represented as creative fantasy so no need to take it too seriously. I didn't mind the title at all. Afterall Houdini's (show) life was based on Death Defying Acts. But this movie turns out to be a love story with an element of the very spiritualism he was trying to debunk. I couldn't help feel that Houdini always wanted to pay someone that prize money. I suspect deep down he was always hoping he would find that inexplicable connection to the afterlife even though he knew it would be unlikely as he was most qualified in the tricks of that trade.

Those rare few individuals that have the wonderful talent to tune into visions or cosmic consciousness or whatever are the first to concede others will call it a delusion and science will always find another explanation. Usually.

So street tough and street wise Mary (Catherine) is focused on the scam of a lifetime. The character is obviously supposed to be a beautiful woman practiced in the art of beguiling men. Catherine pulls it off for me. I find her exquisitely beautiful. Houdini's (Guy) interest is a little peculiar (kinky?) perhaps. She even wonders herself is he falling for her because she's beautiful and she's growing attracted to him or because she reminds him of his mother?

These two get in each others head space and I had to laugh when when the daughter (psychic sidekick) says (in her concern of watching her mother fall for the charismatic and artful player) "don't have just another roll in the hay - like you did with my dad."

Ah the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships between men and woman. Lust. Love. As a man maybe it's easier for me to have trouble telling the difference some times. But it's all in the game.

This is where we get to that perfect little dialogue. I liked it anyway.

"Look what you've done to me"

"I only made you fall in love" (Sounds like a player line to me. Maybe she had it coming. The player you are the player you get baby)

"That wasn't love. That was infatuation. Just another fling. But it didn't quite happen did it."

"I'm afraid. I'm afraid of myself. What I feel for you. What I want. It's shameful"

"It's not shameful Harry. Who taught you that? It's what men and women do and sometimes if you're really lucky in between the sweaty sheets you'll find a little bit of true human love."

"Did you ever find it?"

(If you watch the movie you'll get the answer)

The moral of the story. Sounds just like real life -

Yes I'm attracted to you. Yes it feels like love (for the moment anyway) and it's the best feeling I've felt in a while. But my life - it's someplace else right now. Love. Eternal or ephemeral. You decide.

What had drawn me to watch Death Defying Acts, is that it's a story with Harry Houdini, arguably the greatest illusionist and escape artist of our time. A few days ago I was browsing through a book which revealed the secrets behind his brand of death defying acts, and really he's a man of science, engineering and most of all, a performer to bring to life the act of fooling an audience into believing his stunts. Sure there's an element of danger, but with proper risk assessment and safeguards, they strip away all the mystique that serves to confound.

But contrary to the title, there's nothing really death defying about the movie, as it treaded on safe ground and doesn't dwell any more on the illusions that it has to. In fact, you can count the number of stunts which involve Harry Houdini, and the filmmakers left that for another biographical movie that someone else should pick up on. What we have instead are glimpses into the man's personal life, and Guy Pearce provided quite an intense and charismatic Houdini with personal demons of his own to do battle with, though the story seemed to rein him in from dwelling too much on that aspect, and preferred to have a more romantic tale weaved in.

The romanticism of the movie is not with his illusions, but with a single parent who's a psychic of sorts, relying on her street smarts to get her own act going. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Mary McGarvie, who has to rely on her wits to build credibility for her stage character. Together with daughter and sidekick Benji (played by Saoirse Ronan of Atonement fame), the mother and daughter team tries hard to make a living from their acts, but realize that they're by no means close to Houdini's widespread fame and fortune.

However, Houdini himself throws a gauntlet to all psychics far and wide, that whosoever can accurately reveal what his late mother had last said to him, will inherit US$10,000. His purpose it seems is to reveal that the majority of these soothsayers are tricksters in disguise, until of course he meets the luminous Mary, and affairs of the heart throws him off course. Naturally, Mary and Benji find themselves up against the best in the business, but when your back is against the wall, there's nothing much to lose it seems.

As mentioned earlier, this movie's more of a character study of the master magician, and explores things like his guilt because of dedication to his craft and performance, as well as his questionable motives in being attracted to the fictional Mary McGarvie. Narrated by the character of Benji, we see things through a child's eyes, and perhaps therein lies the loss of some pathos in the romantic angle of it. On one hand, it isn't your classic romantic story, while on the other, it doesn't seem to want to preach the method, rationale and mindset of Houdini himself.

So what emerged is a mixed bag. Beautifully shot, but again falling on the emptiness of its effort in trying to allow the audience to feel for the characters. At least Timothy Spall, who plays Mr Sugarman, Houdini's manager, allowed for some light moments as the guarded and wary person that he is. And credit goes to keeping the ending quite right too.

Gillian Armstrong makes fine movies: she is a director who knows how to tell stories and enhance what appears on the surface to be reality with a healthy dose of fantasy. Her sense of pacing and image creation adds substance to her tales that sometimes border on bizarre.

DEATH DEFYING ACTS uses the character of Harry Houdini as the stimulus of to tell a story about the folk of Edinburgh, Scotland at a time when stage shows were embraced much the way America was using vaudeville - an escape from the rather dreary state of living to a world of entertainment and love of magic. Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her daughter Benji (Saoirse Ronan) survive in Edinburgh by picking pockets not merely for cash but for information to use in their act in the little theaters. Mary does exotic dances then uses her 'gifts' to see into the 'other world' of people in the audience ( Benji does the investigative work and is the prompter for the séance like acts Mary performs). Their idol is Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) and when they learn Houdini is coming to Edinburgh to 'perform', they discover Houdini is promising $10,000 to anyone who can prove they have the ability to look into the future (or past). Houdini's manager Sugarman (Timothy Spall) arranges Houdini's water tank escape acts and other acts of 'magic', and when Mary and Benji arrange to meet Houdini, Sugarman is aware they are charlatans. How Mary and Benji work their way into Houdini's belief system and love life with their con game forms the meat of the sparing.

The atmosphere of the film is well captured by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos who understands who to balance the mire of the streets of 1926 Edinburgh with the gorgeous fantasies used during Houdini's escape acts. The musical score by Cezary Skubiszewski is a terrific mixture of Scottish tunes and instruments with solid melodramatic mood music. Pearce, Zeta-Jones, Spall and Ronan turn in excellent performances. This is an unjustly overlooked film that, while not being a masterpiece, serves up a fine story well told. Grady Harp