The Illusionist (2006)

 

The Illusionist is an illusion in and of itself. It's a film with an independent feel balanced by a cast of well known actors with talent. Don't be fooled by the low box office earnings, it's "limited release”, or Ed Norton in a leading role, because The Illusionist might surprise you as one the best films of the year.

Edward Norton plays Eisenheim, a mysterious magician with the incredible ability to turns illusions into reality. Success and fame seem to be knocking at Eisenheim's door until his chance meeting with his childhood love Sophie van Teschen. The two were childhood friends and instantly fell in love with one another at a young age, but due to their social status, Sophie being a duchess and Eisenheim being part of the lower class, they were soon forced apart and lost contact for over ten years.

Now Sophie is destined to marry the Crown Prince Leopold (played brilliantly by Rufus Sewell), and she and Eisenheim reunite in a chance meeting when the Prince arrives at one of Eisenheim's performances and volunteers Sophie to assist Eisenheim in one of his illusions. Eisenheim's skills amaze the audience, yet appear to annoy the Prince, who is unable to piece together how Eisenheim's illusions work. Believing him to be a fraud the Prince orders the Chief Inspector (Paul Giamatti) to find out all he can about Eisenheim and learn how his illusions work.

Eisenheim begins to find himself in a pickle, with the re-emergence of his feelings for Sophie and now being under intense scrutiny by the Chief Inspector and the Crown Prince. Tired of being pushed around by the corruption of the wealthy and powerful Eisenheim decides to do whatever is possible to prevent Sophie from marrying the Prince, who is only using her for her family power to become King. Therefore he puts himself in a position of shear wits as he attempts to pull the wool over the eyes of the Prince and the Inspector.

Before this film I had only heard of Edward Norton, but never saw him in any leading role, and Jessica Biel I had never thought of as having very much talent, but after seeing The Illusionist I was very impressed with both actors. Norton gives a fantastic performance as a rather reserved yet extremely confident illusionist, and I instantly fell in love with Jessica Biel in her role, to the point that I was a little angry her part was not larger. Paul Giamatti of course is awesome, I loved him in Cinderella Man and his performance here is no less entertaining.

The Illusionist is highly entertaining, the setting is great, the story is gripping never drifting off base and the old style in which the film is shot only adds to the mysterious ambiance of the story. My only negative comments is the film seems a little too long but at only an hour and fifty minutes it's actually relatively short, but at times it feels more like two and a half hours. Also while individually Norton and Biel were great, together they didn't appear to have much chemistry which made their romance appear to be rather forced and mismatched.

In the end,The Illusionist is a must see film. I have seen quite a few entertaining films this year but this is the only one I have seen so far that actually has all the ingredients of something great. With that said at this point in time I'd consider the The Illusionist as my favorite film of the year, masterfully piecing together an entertaining and smart illusion.