Death Defying Acts (2007) is a minor movie with some major actors. Catherine Zeta-Jones is still beautiful as a Scottish vaudeville con artist, and Saoirse Ronan, who you’ll know from Atonement, is energetic and emotional as her 11-year old daughter and trickster assistant. Guy Pearce plays a lithe and muscular Harry Houdini, and Timothy Spall, as Houdini’s manager and protector, is a decent fellow who has become rather hard.
But all this acting talent runs into a serious obstacle: A romance story that has no real romance. The story is that the famous Harry Houdini, a troubled man driving himself harder and harder, and a charming but tough Edinburgh con artist fall passionately in love. Although Harry has to move on for his career and his wife, he has learned, as the end of the movie tells us, to love, if but briefly. And the poverty-stricken single mother is left with a tidy sum of money. But the problem with this story is that there is no passionate romance. I do not mean Zeta-Jones and Pearce fail to generate any on-screen chemistry, but rather that the script prevents them from doing so. First she cannot figure out what he wants; then she is suspicious that he’s not serious; and so on. Meanwhile, her daughter and his manager would love to nip any infatuation in the bud. We see mother, daughter, and Harry on one fun family outing where a kiss is stifled and “nothing happened.” Finally, they spend a night together in her shack and then Houdini is chauffeured away.
The movie might get away with this is serious flaw if it had something else going for it. Suspense? Yes, there is some, but mother and daughter eventually discover Houdini’s last words to his mother, so we know they will (probably) win the huge cash reward for channelling them from the beyond. Behind the scenes look at Houdini’s magic? No, except one handcuff escape trick. Insight into Edinburgh in the 1920s? Not a chance. If Death Defying Acts doesn’t come alive, that is because it is primarily a romance where the plot prohibits much romance.