Review: The Illusionist (2006)

It's taken more than a month to finish this review. Mainly because I wish I knew what the Dickens this film is. It's not fantasy, it's not mystery, it's not really historical drama... It's just a mess.

The best thing I can say for this film is the opening credits are pretty.

The Illusionist is a 2006 film, loosely based on a short story called "Eisenheim the Illusionist" and even more loosely based on the Mayerling incident.

I only recognised three actors:
Edward Norton (Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk 2008) as Eisenheim
Eddie Marsan (Pancks in Little Dorrit 2008) as Josef
Rufus Sewell (Lord Melbourne in Victoria 2016) as Crown Prince Leopold (a fictionalised version of Crown Prince Rudolf -- yes, the one in Elisabeth -- who for some reason shares a name with Rudolf's father-in-law)

The film starts near the end, and tells the rest of the story by flashbacks. The plot revolves around a supposed magician named Eisenheim. Supposedly he's able to conjure up the spirits of the dead. A glance at the film's title tells you all you need to know about how real these "spirits" are. Chief Inspector Uhl is investigating Eisenheim's non-existent powers, and reporting what he discovers to Crown Prince Leopold.

Eisenheim

Uhl

Leopold

We jump back in time to Eisenheim, as a young man, meeting Duchess Sophie von Teschen and falling in love with her. Then we jump forward fifteen years (can you tell that this film has a very disjointed time-frame?) to Eisenheim, now a magician, performing in Vienna. He isn't pretending to raise the dead yet; instead he's pretending to make an orange tree grow in an instant.

The police, who apparently have nothing better to do, are determined to find out how Eisenheim does his tricks. Leopold, who also apparently has nothing better to do, urges them on. Really? The Victorian era was obsessed with the occult. Stage magicians were a dime a dozen, some more convincing than others. All Eisenheim's tricks in the film are based on real tricks used by real stage magicians. So why this sudden frantic demand to find out how he does it? A more realistic reaction would be for them to shrug and say, "We've seen these tricks a hundred times before. Pretty convincing, though."

Eisenheim meets Sophie again. Now she's engaged to Leopold, who has a reputation for domestic abuse. I really have to question her judgement in not running as far away as possible the minute he showed any interest in her. And the reason given for him wanting to marry her -- to get power over her lands -- makes no sense. In the 19th century the holders of the Duchy of Teschen were... the Habsburgs. The family the historical Crown Prince was part of. Sophie's lands were part of the empire Rudolf's/Leopold's father ruled. In other words, the filmmakers didn't do their research 😠

Sophie

Nor did they do their research in how people behaved. An unmarried woman -- especially a noblewoman rumoured to be marrying into the freaking royal family -- would never get into a carriage with a man, unsupervised, in broad daylight. Not even if he was a childhood friend. Her reputation would be in tatters within hours.

Eisenheim humiliates Leopold in front of a group of royals and aristocrats. This infuriates Leopold, so he orders Uhl to stop Eisenheim's shows. Talk about an overreaction. Assuming the film places Leopold's death in 1889 like Rudolf's, this is set in the late 1880s, when Austria-Hungary was busy forging alliances to fend off Russia. It's just possible the Crown Prince might have had a few more important things to think of than a magician's tricks.

The lack of research becomes more and more obvious. Sophie apparently follows Eisenheim to a farm house (how did no one notice her going there?) where they sleep together. No, no, no. A woman's reputation could be ruined by the slightest insinuation of improper conduct. There was plenty of immorality, but no woman in her right mind would have made it so obvious. Not unless she wanted to be labelled a whore and barred from polite society forever. This film falls victim to an all-too-common and usually fatal mistake: "historical setting, modern characters". In other words, the characters have the morals and attitudes of the 21st century, but are in a story set in the past. It's a mistake that's guaranteed to infuriate all viewers with any knowledge of history.

Eisenheim and Sophie now go out of their way to be as obvious about their relationship as possible. Uhl is spying on them, and reports all of this to Leopold. Sophie and Leopold have an argument that apparently ends with Leopold murdering Sophie. This is supposed to shock the viewer. I'd long since lost any sympathy or interest in any of the characters, so my reaction was basically, "Please let this end soon".

Unfortunately, there's still almost an hour to go. Does the film improve in that hour? ...No.

Eisenheim starts his "raising the dead" trick to contact Sophie. Her "ghost" accuses Leopold of murdering her. Uhl investigates, and finds what looks like proof of the murder. He confronts Leopold about it. Word of the murder has already reached the Emperor, so Leopold commits suicide. If the film had ended there, it would have been an underwhelming mess. But then someone decided to throw in a plot twist that turns the main characters into the villains.

All Eisenheim's tricks were fakes. That was easy to see coming. Sophie isn't actually dead. Also easy to see coming. Sophie and Eisenheim went to an awful lot of trouble to frame Leopold for a murder that never even happened, which led to his death. What. The viewer is supposed to see this as okay, because Leopold was the villain and a complete jerk. Yeah, he was, but he was still framed for a fictional crime and ended up killing himself because of it. True, they couldn't have known he'd do that, but they knew they were destroying his life with a false accusation. That plot twist makes Eisenheim and Sophie as bad as he was. Yet the film portrays them as the good guys. Talk about protagonist-centred morality.

Overall the film is a fine example of wasted potential. It could have been an interesting look at how 19th century magicians faked their tricks. Or it could have been a fictionalised retelling of the Mayerling incident. With more research it could have been both. But someone decided to smash the two plots together while doing as little research as possible, with disastrous results.

Is it available online?: I don't think so.

Rating: 2/10. It would be 1/10, but the tricks are cool to look at even if the rest of the film is dull, so I'm giving it an extra point.