Disclaimer: I personally tend to get more out of movie reviews after I've seen a movie than before-hand.
If you want a recommendation to go or not: I say go see it. If you want to know why, read on. Though I recommend you see it first, then come back and read. But if you are not going to go see it, that's fine too.
I don't know how to write about a movie without 'giving it away' because the ending and the actions contained therein are integral to the experience and to not write about them would be to ultimately do a disservice to the reader and myself. Therefore, be advised, this post may [and probably will] contain spoilers for this film, and possibly for other films if they are referenced.
The Illusionist is a movie about trickery, deceit, and, naturally, illusion.
Throughout the film, Eisenheim the Illusionist performs fantastical illusions and tricks and his audiences are mesmerized, some believing he is performing true magic, his tricks too real to be simple sleight of hand or smoke and mirrors. The crown prince Leopold attends one of his shows and is impressed by his illusions, but is determined to prove that it is all mechanical and Eisenheim is no more than a talented magician, growing ever suspicious of him as his popularity grew. Leopold is a man of reason, while the residents of the city are increasingly convinced that Eisenheim possesses something supernatural.
Chief Inspector Uhl is charged with finding out the truth, particularly when Sophie, the fiance of Leopold dies and Eisenheim is suspected, while Eisenheim charges Leopold committed the murder. Uhl is the audience surrogate, trying, largely in vain, to piece together a complicated puzzle, because we [and he] don't know who or what to trust in a film about illusion (and he doesn't know he's in a film about illusion, but he knows he's dealing with a man with whom nothing is ever quite exact ly how it appears. Consider a scene in which Eisenheim, having been arrested for fraud, pronounces to the crowd cheering for him outside the police chief's office that his illusions are just that and not due to any supernatural powers. Thus he has cleared himself of being a fraud, although he says the words so flatly that once again we don't know if we should trust it. Does he mean what he says, or is he simply trying to protect himself?)
The ending has a very 'Psycho'-esque quality to it, crossed with Rashomon, if you've seen those films [if not, I suggest you see them]. That could "give it away" if you haven't seen it, but then again, once you have seen it [and i recommend you do] you must decide whether or not you choose to accept the ending as the actual course of events, or if it's merely the inspectors way of connecting the images/experiences of the case of Eisenheim which would go otherwise unsolved; an example of the Kuleshov Effect applied to real-life (real-life on screen that is).
It's a movie that forces the audience to be engaged, an active participant in creating the experience, and thereby, every experience of it will be unique. You don't get to sit there passively and let the characters tell you what happens.
The acting is good all-around. Good material just brings out the best in people. I thought Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X, The Italian Job) gave a great muted performance as Eiesenheim and Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man, Sideways, American Splendor) is pitch-perfect as Chief Inspector Uhl, at all times equally befuddled and intrigued by the illusionist played by Norton . It's one of those ensemble pieces where performances are all dependent on each other and everyone carries their weight in this one. Jessica Biel and Rufus Sewell turn in solid supporting performances as well.
Philip Glass' music is perfect for this movie. His familiar style of utilizing relative simplicity and repetition, creates precisely the sort of hypnotic mood that complements the story wonderfully.
The cinematography is economical, if not original, and the director clearly spent more time directing the performances than the camera, which is not to say that it's boring stylistically, it's just more conventional than one would expect with such a non-conventional story. The locations [set in Vienna, filmed in and around Prague] are very good and the costuming and set design all seem authentic enough to not be distracting or anachronistic. But the crux of the film is the performances, backed by that hypnotizing music.
It's also one of the few recent films where all [or nearly at least nearly all] the special effects are actually necessary to the story, rather than being over-indulgent or gratuitous.
At the end of the day, the obvious comparison between the illusions of Eisenheim and the illusion of film must be made. Films are seen as moving images, but really they are successions of still images projected in rapid succession, perceived as moving through a phenomenon of the mind known as Persistence of Vision. So, the film director is in a sense an illusionist, creating something that doesn't really exist, or does it?
Does the fact that we perceive something to be real make it so? Can our brains makes sense of being able to perceive the non-existent [an illusion]? Does something have to be tangible for it to be real? Can we see things that do not exist? I sat in the theater watching this film knowing that I was seeing 24 still frames every second, not moving images and yet I was convinced I was watching moving images. Why? Illusion or delusion?
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