Both a Trick And a Treat

Movies began as trickery, a game  that science played on the eye. Film is a series of photographs passing through a projector so quickly that the eye believes the images on them are moving. That lie, of moving pictures, seemed like magic to early spectators and, when all the conjuring arts and techniques are aligned, seem so today. Viewers still allow themselves to be fooled by the director: the illusionist-in-chief.

So The Illusionist, based on a story by Steven Millhauser, is the perfect title for any movie that wants you to consider the first principle of cinema: take nothing you see for granted. Same goes for the film's title character, Eisenheim (Edward Norton), who astonishes Vienna theatergoers of a century ago with his subtle sleight of hand. In an instant, this sorcerer can make an orange tree sprout from a seed. He can stick a saber on a floor that strong men are unable to dislodge. Perhaps he can bring the dead back to life. You are welcome to conclude that Eisenheim possesses darker powers, that his guise as a mere illusionist is his cleverest illusion.

As a child, the magician had met and fallen in love with a young duchess and schemed to elope with her. In maturity, this beauty has become Princess Sophie (Jessica Biel), who is likely to be wed to Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), a potentate as brutal as he is handsome--and he is very handsome. If Eisenheim and Sophie are to resume their tryst, they must elude both Leopold and his wily Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti). All are ready to play roles in Eisenheim's game: to be his accomplice, his stooge, his unmasker, his ruin.

Filmed in Prague, that city of secrets, The Illusionist takes some getting used to. You must shrug off a clumsy opening and indulge the American stars (Norton, Biel, Giamatti) for strutting their fanciest Anglo-European accents. But even those may be devices of misdirection, little traps set by Neil Burger, the writer-director. It's not how Burger sets the stage; it's what he puts on it. Soon Norton slips into Eisenheim's skin and, with the aid of real-life master magicians Ricky Jay and Michael Weber, makes the enterprise soar--or, at any rate, levitate.

Burger has tricks up his sleeve, but he's not a cheat. He knows that the camera is a gullible instrument, so he confidently puts all the clues on the screen. It's up to you to find these hidden treasures. By the end, the canniest viewers may not be fooled, but--and you can believe this--they may be mesmerized.