Beautiful visuals but fails to deliver..

Rating: 5/10 (25 January 2007)

This is a very pretty movie and indeed for all intents and purposes it appears to be filmed in a different period. The colours are soft and faded much like going through a very old photo album ( the album of The Empress Elisabeth of Austria comes to mind). And indeed the story is reminiscent of 'Mayerling' and many others of that ilk.
Authentic to a Vienna at the turn of the century with the Czech Republic standing in, the camera makes the most of some interesting angles and wondrous art direction. However both the plot and the dialogue fall far, far short of being satisfying.
For one the actual dialogue is minimalist and for another highly anachronistic ('OK' used). Accents slip and fall and get up again to morph sideways into an unintentional Colonel Klinkishness that grates. Jessica Biel looks far too modern with botoxed trout-lips. Edward Norton does his best, this kind of role is made for him, but he is inadequately served with the anorexic script.
The middle bogs down into tedium, there is no story arc to push it forward ***minor spoiler alert***the heroine has died*** and the illusions enter the realm of spirituality.
Paul Giamatti works very hard in his role as the police inspector, tip of the hat to him and to Edward but Rufus Sewell just about chews the scenery out from under anyone who shares a scene with him.
Very disappointing and I am completely shocked at the overall rating at IMDb. This theme has been overworked just about to death and it shows. 5 out of 10 for the cinematography amidst the predictability of the story.