Film Review: The Illusionist is More Than Meets the Eye

Whatever you do, don’t go nipping out for a snack toward the last four minutes of “The Illusionist,” the new movie starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti. The swirling closing montage of the film ties up the many dangling loose ends into a neat package. If you miss it, chances are your film companion will never be able to explain all the condensed details.

This quietly rich fantasy is a sophisticated and stylish antidote to the usual bombastic summer film releases. It is a love story wrapped in an adventure surrounded by an enigma. The screenplay is inspired by a short story written by Steven Millhauser called “Eisenheim the Illusionist.” The film is told in the manner you might tell a bedtime story to a precocious child. Like that child, the audience finds itself periodically asking, “And then what happened?”

The tale is set in 19th century Vienna with two young lovers who are kept apart by the barrier of class distinction. The young woman, charmingly played by Jessica Biel, grows into a desirable aristocratic pawn in the Austrian-Hungarian political alliance. The young man, handled with laser intensity by Edward Norton, reinvents himself as Eisenheim, an amazing magician. Thwarting them is Crown Prince Leopold, a role that Rufus Sewell sinks his teeth into. As in so many films, the villain steals the show and Sewell is the master thief here. He is riveting as the megalomaniac prince who is not too tightly wrapped to begin with and who may or may not be a murderer. Navigating all the deceit while trying to maintain his own moral compass is Paul Giamatti as the Chief Inspector. Giamatti is rapidly evolving into one of the most engaging actors to watch on the screen today. He can play with total abandon or with understated control.  He goes with sly subtlety here.  A flick of the eyebrows or a tilt of the head is all he needs to convey a multitude of thoughts. At the end of this film, a woman in the row behind me was heard to say, “I’m really becoming a Paul Giamatti fan.”