This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under Drama, I, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell, Eddie Marsan
Director: Neil Burger
A wonderful movie that features first rate acting by all of the principals and a smooth story that finds the right blend of complexity and watchability. Ed Norton seems to have an almost magical ability of his own to find the right scripts and then flawlessly execute his role. This is no exception. Newcomer writer/director Neil Burger did a fine job here and Jessica Biel continues to develop her acting skill, but Giamatti’s role and performance stole the show here. There is a slightly sanitary lack of emotion from the characters, but this is subtle and a minor quibble with a wonderful film.
Edward Norton is an Austrian magician of almost supernatural ability (or is it?), named Eisenheim, who re-discovers his young love (Jessica Biel) in the arms of the crown prince played by Sewell. This leads to a mounting conflict between the two men with the prince using his Inspector Uhl (Giamatti) to make life difficult for the stubborn magician, much to the consternation of Eisenheim’s manager. The story moves forward smoothly at an unhurried pace that never gets boring, much like the main character who likewise moves steadily toward his goal without any fear or panic.
This film came out just ahead of simiarly magician-themed ‘The Prestige’. Studios often have same year releases about about similar (or the exact same) topics in the same year. I often wonder how this happens, but guess it has to do with simply stealing ideas from a script that was missed or passed on. At any rate, in this case, Prestige was a decent film, but just one of Norton’s tricks in the Illusionist was to make its competitor vanish from our memories. Bravo!
