The Illusionist

It’s hard to put illusions on the big screen. Orson Welles warned against it, aware that his audience knew camera tricks could fool them, and that was before the dawn of CG, which made it far easier to show the high fantastic onscreen, yet far harder to convince an audience an illusion might be real.

And part of the problem with The Illusionist is that the uninitiated might think the magic is too slick and fantastical to be real, while those of us who recognise Robert-Houdin’s orange tree, tricks with electromagnets and Pepper’s Ghosts also see how writer/director Neil Burger took everything too far, making every illusion that bit too real in a poor attempt to make even conjuring enthusiasts think there’s more than conventional magic at play here, to the extent that the things I was most impressed by were really the trifling parts – rolling of balls over hands, handkerchief legerdemain. But the magic tricks are only what colour this film. What really matters is the plot.

And let’s face it, this is very formulaic stuff. Sweet childhood lovers are torn apart because while she is aristocracy, he is a carpenter’s son. But years later, he resurfaces as Eisenheim the master illusionist, and returns to Vienna, where he discovered his childhood sweetheart Sophie is to be married to the ambitious but unstable heir to the Austrian Empire, Crown Prince Leopold. When sparks begin to fly in the wake of this reunion, Chief Police Inspector Uhl is ordered to keep a close eye on Eisenheim, suspecting the reunited lovers may elope.

Then follows a battle of wits between the three men. Period detail is rich and Leopold is quite clearly based on the historical Crown Prince Rudolf, but the audience is asked to swallow a lot here – we are to believe that a low-born Jewish showman could not only be invited to perform a private performance for a Crown Prince but to address him as an equal without severe punishment. We are to believe that royal stables never get mucked out. We are to look at a beautifully-shot fin-de-siècle Vienna and believe it would be so clean. We are to accept that a police officer would follow clues so incredibly obvious that anyone would instantly realise they were planted, but also that he can be manipulated into making crucial connections he really might well have missed. And then there’s the twist ending, that I actually predicted but then dismissed, thinking it would be TOO obvious and keeping in mind that if it unfolded that way, the whole purpose of the revenge drama portion of the script would be meaningless, so was actually surprised when the twist came. Surprised but disappointed. I hate tacked-on, unworkable twists.

However, there is enough in the film to make it highly enjoyable. The story is ropey but works dramatically, leading us on with drama, suspense and likeable characters. Performances are excellent, Giamatti in particular outstanding as Uhl, finally getting a role with some meat. His affable but sharp police inspector is very human and multi-faceted, an excellent foil for the understated intensity of the detached Edward Norton as Eisenheim and the preening excesses of Rufus Sewell’s performance as Leopold. Even Jessica Biel, evidently trying to break away from her cheesy blockbuster image, acquits herself well, given that repressed emotion suits Sophie well. Philip Glass puts in another forgettable but appropriate and surprisingly rich score, and cinematography is really excellent. The whole film has a sepia, soft-focus look that makes it more compellingly fairy-tale-esque, removing it from reality the right amount to make the melodrama work.

It has its faults, but I’m a fan of magic, especially magic ultimately shown to be trickery, and while I wish we’d seen tricks done totally without CG, as authentic as those they were based upon, this was a satisfying and rather fun little period piece, with some great performances and an excellent premise, but sadly some major flaws.