And what it feels like to be in the company of ones. What differentiates them from engineers and people in scientific trades. The value and the heartfeltness of truths for all factions and for all types of people. The value and place of story telling. And still all the aspects it takes to become a performer in your own right.
With good editing.
The final big time and place cut I was sceptical on, but upon the second viewing - it fits and brings the (not so obvious) story arc to its intended finish.
Whats especially well done is, that it stays truthful to the audience throughout, while it tells them everything to know to understand whats happening before their eyes in an analytic way also -- and yet in its credit sequence it ends with the most easy thing you can do to an audience - mislead them, but in a way - that if you listen to it closely you'll understand, that it is misdirection in a very fundamental way. Yet still truthful. And for certain, no big mystery, because you've been told how it works by one of the magicians in the first third of the movie.
And yet the movie is not about any of these things. Its about the sense of wonder, the heart, the comfort and the story telling, that Shawn Farquhar brings and brought to magic -- and about being entertained by a shockingly probable murder mystery. And at least in my interpretation, how he hands over his understanding of the craft to future generations.
