The Illusionist

Red = Spoilers 

The Illusionist is a 2006 romantic mystery film about a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna, who, after 15 years, reunites with his childhood love, after being torn apart because they were in different social classes. The movie is based on a short story called “Eisenheim the Illusionist”, which is what the main character changes his name to after he’s been gone learning magic for 15 years.   

What’s it about? We start in a theater, where what we can only assume is a magician is sitting in a chair on stage and sweating profusely. Suddenly, an apparition begins to appear next to him, and the crowd starts to go wild. But before anything can happen, the police bust in and shut everything down and arrest the magician, Eisenheim the Illusionist. Chief Inspector Walter Uhl begins to tell Eisenheim’s tale to the Crown Prince Leopold. He was born Eduard Abramovich, the son of a carpenter, and he had a chance encounter with a magician when he was young. He later fell in love with the Duchess Sophie von Teschen, but the two were separated because of their social classes and he went on to practice magic. The Duchess is now engaged to the Crown Prince while Eisenheim has returned to Vienna to perform his magic. While at his show the Crown Prince is so impressed by Eisenheim that he invites him to do a private show at the Imperial Palace. Eisenheim does the show, humiliating the prince in front of all his guests during it. This enrages the prince, and he has Eisenheim’s show shut down. Sophie, now knowing who Eisenheim really is, goes to see him, and they make love and plan to leave together. She then returns to the prince to try and end her engagement with him and is murdered by him. Eisenheim takes the rest of his money and buys a small theater to open a new show involving talking to dead spirits. Eisenheim summons the spirit of Sophie and she says that the person who killed her is in the theater with them. Uhl says he’ll arrest Eisenheim for fraud for making accusations like that, so Eisenheim tells everyone that all the things that he is doing are illusions and tricks and that he can’t talk to dead people. Uhl warns Eisenheim that if he summons Sophie in his next performance he’ll be arrested, but Eisenheim does it anyway. When it turns out that Eisenheim himself is an illusion and there’s no one to arrest, there’s nothing they can do about it. Uhl tells Leopold that he’s found evidence, jewels from Leopold’s sword, that could implicate him in Sophie’s murder. Uhl’s also sent a letter to Leopold’s father, the emperor, telling him everything that’s happened. Leopold pulls a gun on Uhl as officers of the Imperial guard begin to ride up to the palace door. He turns the gun on himself and shoots himself as the guards break in. Later, Uhl is outside the palace, no longer the Chief Inspector, when a young boy runs up and hands him a package. He says it’s from “Herr Eisenheim”. It’s the Orange Tree trick explanation that Uhl had wanted so long ago. And then he thinks back to all the things that had happened recently and puts all the pieces of the puzzle together to realize that it had all been one big illusion. And then we see Eisenheim and Sophie kissing next to a cabin as Eisenheim puts Sophie’s locket in her palm.  

What’s good? It’s a great story. It’s enthralling. It’s enticing. It’s everything a magic show should be. It doesn’t seem to slow down. The movie seems to speed by. That’s how you know you’re watching a good movie.  

What’s bad? There’s not a whole lot that’s bad about it. I can sit here and try to pick it apart trying to think about something, but I really can’t think of anything that’s that bad about this movie.  

The acting? There’s a lot of great actors in this movie. Paul Giamatti is a very underrated actor. I don’t think he’s really THAT underrated, but he’s not the A-lister that he deserves to be. 

The effects? It’s a movie about magicians. The effects are pretty good. The one guy pulled a frog out from behind a kid’s ear and turned it into a rose. That’s a special effect right there. 

Why did they arrest him? In the beginning, the first time you see the movie, they just arrest him for no reason with no context or anything, and you’re going “hey, why are they arresting that guy?” But I guess that’s kind of the point of moviemaking, is to keep people guessing like that… 

Where did that frog come from? That’s an old trick, pulling a coin from behind somebody’s ear. You palm the coin, you flick the wrist, you pull the coin. Ta-da! But to pull a frog from behind somebody’s ear? Where do you hide the frog? You can’t palm a frog… 

Why did those guys want him to drop that egg? When he was practicing balancing that egg on that stick, why did they want him to drop it so bad? Just, out of spite? Just to be dicks? There’s really no other explanation for why they wanted him to drop it so badly. He was just a poor kid, practicing a hobby, and they were a bunch of rich snobs, being jerks. 

The prince volunteers Sophie, not himself. The prince is willing to volunteer Sophie, but he’s not willing to volunteer himself to go up on stage. He’s too cowardly to go himself. But he’s more than willing to volunteer somebody else to do it.  

It didn’t look like he had a choice. When those two men who were following Eisenheim asked him he wanted to join them for a drink it didn’t look like he had much of a choice. 

The prince is a dick. It’s shown over the course of the movie that the prince is a real douchebag. He beats women. He’s a coward. He’s insecure. Just your general, run-of-the-mill douche… 

He could’ve made himself Emperor. At the party, when Eisenheim was holding Leopold’s sword down and not letting him pick it up, he could have waited until Leopold let go and then walked over and picked it up himself, claiming the right to become Emperor. But he didn’t. He humiliated Leopold just a little. 

Not being very discreet. For being someone who thinks it’s prudent to meet in a carriage, they’re not being very discreet by kissing and handing each other luggage all over Vienna. Somebody’s bound to see them.  

The prince very loudly murdered her. He followed her downstairs with a sword in his hand, stumbling drunk, and into a barn. I mean, this wasn’t the dark ages. People had windows. They could hear stuff.  

Not completely corrupt. Yeah, Uhl was kind of corrupt. But not completely corrupt. He still had some semblance of duty left. Which he proved at the end, when he sent the letter to the Emperor’s General Staff. So, good for him.  

Who did they charge with murder? Who’s the unnamed guy that they charged for the murder of Sophie while Leopold went free? Did some random guy just rot in jail while the Crown Prince lived his life free of charge for murdering his fiance? 

Force projection. They never do explain the trick. Is it Force Projection? Is he someone in the audience? How is he doing it? What is the illusion? 

The cops accepted the prince shot himself pretty easily. The cops accepted the fact that the prince shot himself pretty quickly. They didn’t even question Uhl about it. “The prince shot himself…” “Well, yeah, obviously…” 

So, yeah. Go and see The Illusionist. It’s mystifying and spectacular, but mostly, it’s just a good movie. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…