Death Defying Acts

Filmmaker Gillian Armstrong (Charlotte Gray, My Brilliant Career) depicts fictional incidents involving master magician Harry Houdini in this old-style Hollywood romance. The film is corny but endearingly so, as it tells the story of a phony psychic (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who, along with her daughter (Saoirse Ronan of Atonement), contrives to win a challenge offered by Houdini (Guy Pearce). If you can tell him the last words his sainted mother said to him, you will win $10,000. Unsurprisingly, Houdini falls for Zeta-Jones’ character while visiting her hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland. Zeta-Jones and Pearce make a good on-screen couple, and Ronan (soon to star in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones) is fittingly precocious as the narrator, who is more psychic than her mother.

Shelf Talk: Arriving on the coattails of two high-profile magician dramas (The Prestige, The Illusionist) that have yet to acquire cult followings, Death Defying Acts is best sold as a high-quality chick flick that will please viewers in search of the modern equivalent of a Golden Age love story. Although the film was buried by its studio (appearing in only two theaters during its brief run), Zeta-Jones and Pearce will guarantee Death Defying Acts a respectable shelf life on disc.