Here we have the other magician movie of 2006. Where The Prestige tells the story of a game of “cat and also cat” between competing magicians, the core of this film is the the interplay between Edward Norton’s Eisenheim the Illusionist and Paul Giamatti’s Chief Inspector Uhl.
Giamatti is fantastic in this role. He plays Uhl as a cross between a thinner, less corrupt Sidney Greenstreet and a non eye-poppingly intense Brian Blessed. The result is an incredibly powerful character who is both a dedicated public servant (with all the compromises to higher authority that entails) and an individual of great personal integrity. When those conflicting aspects of his character get called into conflict, Uhl’s dissipation of this tension drives the climax of the film.
Edward Norton, as Eisenheim, is solid. His motivations are simple:
love, for Jessia Biel’s Sophie, a noblewoman he has known [and loved] since childhood, but who is betrothed to Rufus Sewell’s Crown Prince Leopold;
ego, which drives him to try and win Sophie from the Crown Prince, and to use his skills as a performer to first embarrass, then challenge, and ultimately attempt to destroy, the Prince;
and loss, which drives him to make contact with the dead.
Just as Uhl navigates the shoals of his own complex character, so Eisenheim charts a course through his own motivations.
And, of course, as with any film about magicians, nothing is precisely as it seems. The problem with The Illusionist is that the things that are not what they seem that are integral to the plot are telegraphed in such a way that it becomes possible to see the trick as it is happening. So, instead of appreciating the story, the film becomes an exercise in looking behind this curtain. This is a shame, as the sloppiness of the craft detracts from the impact of the performances, and this in turn blunts Giamatti’s final scene, as Uhl puts all the pieces together.
