Tricky How An Illusion Is Confused with Magic

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2017)

This movie has the unfortunate luck of being released the same time as The Prestige. It often gets confused with that film and it should not. This film in my opinion is just as good, and is different from the other film which makes this comparison a bit phony.
A dark film using locations in the Czech Republic effectively as a back ground, magic is not really the subject here much. Illusion is more of the subject. A forbidden love between children of different classes finally gets started when after the kids are broken up because their families are of different classes, not unusual in 19th century Europe. About half way through the film, after they reunite adults, she is murdered.
Edward Norton is brilliant as Eisenheim, the Illusionist whose act is beyond magic. Paul Giamatti is great as Inspector Uhl, the detective who has to cover up Jessica Biel Sophie's death for political reasons. Rufus Sewell as Crown Prince Leopold is the reason for the cover-up, in position to become King until his Sophie, his Dutchess to become Princess, is murdered.
This film is a look at lost love, murder, obsession, and Illusion and is done as well as any story I have seen filmed. The illusion at the end is worth being around for. Or perhaps is it real? The film leaves it to the viewer to decide. No narrator here, the characters and events carry the story well enough to make a narrator unneeded.