A synopsis of the story
Gillian Armstrong’s ‘Death Defying Acts’ tells the story of a psychic’s brief love encounter with the infamous Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce).
The story is set in the Scottish town of Edinburgh, during the last leg of the great escapologist Houdini’s, 1926 world tour. Mary McGarvie (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a pseudo-psychic entertainer struggling to make ends meet for herself and her daughter, Benji (Saoirse Ronan), when she hears of a challenge put forth by Harry Houdini. In the hope of contacting his late mother, Houdini offers a monetary reward of $10,000 to the psychic able to make contact with her and prove it by revealing her dying words to her son. With the aid of her daughter, Benji, Mary sets out to con Houdini and claim the cash prize.
Mary’s plan is constrained by the intense attraction that Houdini develops towards her, and what follows is a tangled love affair between the two.
0 Comments