A Beautifully-Photographed Near-Classic with One Developmental Flaw

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2009)

"The Illusionist" (2006) is a very beautiful film I suggest with a splendidly attractive surface that founders on only one vital point, the impossibility of the illusions created and being used by its central character to bring down a tyrant. Neil Burger has directed this film in classical and intelligent style, never striving for sensational effect and getting the very most out of his cast. The story altogether too-obviously I assert was developed from a 'short story' from Steven Millhauser "Eisenheim the Illusionist", by the director. As is the case with too many films of recent vintage, including "You've Got Mail", "Devil With a Blue Dress" and dozens of others, the fundamental key to the film's full-realism was never discovered. This leaves the viewer with a very rich-looking modest-budget fantasy about the Hapsburg Empire's leadership class and its tendency toward totalitarianism and emotional instability. The subplot concerns the Crown Prince Leopold's bad character, that leads him to a desire to overthrow the Emperor. But the piece's main plot concerns the love of a man, now an Asian-trained world-class illusionist, for the Duchess who was his first love and is also the marital key to the Crown Prince's nefarious plan. This effort's dozen producers have achieved a surprisingly effective and sustained "look", in my judgment, through the use of horse-drawn vehicles and major buildings of the late 1800s--two theaters, a palace, a large house, a railway station and several streets, as well as attractive outdoor settings. For this unity of design, Cinematographer Dick Pope, Production Designer Ondrej Nekvasil, Art Directora Stefan Kovacik and Vlasta Svoboda, Set Decorator Petra Habova and Costume Designer Ngila Dickson all deserve high credit. Philip Glass's music never makes a complete point but it is lush and unobtrusively applied to the gorgeous tapestry of this period romance cum mystery, in my opinion. In the realm of acting, which for any costume film is so central to successful believability's being achieved by any filmmaker, the curious lack of development of characters at once makes the casting of vocally-competent players easier but also hamstrings their best efforts. They are, in effect, too-often reduced by this failing to two or three lines, in one scene or two. This lack I suggest is partly due to the failure of the adapter to develop the original story beyond its two lovers and two opponents; but it is also a result of the secretive nature of all three characters, none of whom is able to confine in anyone. Among the supporting cast, Robert Russel as a Spiritualist leader and young Elias Bauer as a messenger are given noticeable one-scene roles. Others having meaningful parts included Aaron Johnson and Eleanor Tomlinson as the youthful friends destined to be lovers, Karl Johnson as the Doctor, and others who are given two or three lines here or there, which seem surprisingly performed well in all cases. There are even theatrical, crowd and street scenes of impressive attractiveness and utility. As the Crown Prince, the mad Leopold, Rufus Sewell, works hard but is sometimes out of his depth in a part demanding a classical training. The same must be said for Edward Norton. His intelligence and theatrical competence allow him to execute the more-demanding speeches adequately or better; but much of the time he appears to be a merely thin and somewhat gangling character actor unable to find an approach to playing a charismatic leader of men; he is not helped by having no confidant to play off throughout most of the film, which leaves him often standing alone in large rooms and being questioned by others. Jessica Biel is sincere and lovely as the Duchess Sophie; all she lacks is a stage-trained voice to be added to all her other impressive credentials. So, I claim, it falls to narrator and Police Inspector Paul Giamatti to carry the film. This, I argue, he does in splendid Oscarworthy fashion from beginning to end. He alone in the cast is given a variety of moods as well as scenes to play; and the strength of the film's logic and his own success at achieving the effect the director desires are perhaps the project's greatest strengths. It should be noted that the narrative is not swift-paced but is nevertheless very satisfying throughout, even in theater-site scenes that in lesser hands might have slowed up the progress of the work. With a great leading man, such as the story deserved, and a solution to the believability of the illusions being depicted, which are so powerful they mystify an empire's best minds, the film might have achieved much more even than it did. What results, I argue, is an unusually handsome and very-well-told cinematic story, a near-classic well worth the seeing more than once, if only for its economy of means and unusual physical beauty.