A Pallet of magic and intrigue.

Rating: 9/10 (28 August 2006)

An intriguing and beguiling movie, deep and rich with a Rembrandt like pallet for film texture, The Illusionist was another enjoyable summer surprise. The casting constellation well chosen, Paul Giamatti, Edward Norton and Jessica Biel led the average Joe Schmoe movie viewer through a wonderful maze where you fell into pits, hit dead ends and locked doors, and were willing to believe the more obvious but expect the suspect: A love story that piloted the events through a tangled web of preverifications between truth and deceit.
But it is magic.
The movie was well named. Edward Norton plays Eisenheim, who from childhood chance meetings with a magician becomes enamored with not just slight of hand, also falls in love with the beautiful Sophie (Jessica Biel). The relationship is doomed for the start. She is a duchess and he the son of a cabinet maker. It is, after all, an age old story, but this one draws you in because I believe everyone loves a magician... even if it is just to expose the tricks they perform. And then there is the Chief Inspector, Played extremely well by Paul Giamatti, who is given the task to filter out the visual illusions from the truth. Both Giamatti and Norton seem to get equal attention in the film, and it is refreshingly well paced. I did not feel it was too long or too short. The story just fit perfectly in the 110 minutes it used.
I would like to go back to the film texture. Like many sci-fi films that are shot like looking through collored lenses (like the Matrix and Underworld), this one chose sepia and higher contrasts to its presentation. Like so many masters that used the browns in an under-painting and then added color on top, the visual world is enhanced in a richness and warmth, yet enshrouded in a mystery of it's own. The film is totally wrapped in it own luster that you are coaxed in to the lives and thinkings of the primary characters.
It is magic.
And I'm spoiling the film no more. Go see it. It has more depth than you realize.