The Illusionist: B

Every blazing glare levied, every soft sigh, every entrancing blur in The Illusionist feels at once rigid and intangible. There is a sort of romantic religiosity to the way that Eisenheim (Edward Norton) casts his hands majestically about seeking alternately to thrill the audience and ensnare them. Such feeling are at the core of Neil Burger's latest drama about the gaps between the mind and reality.

When Eisenheim was just a boy, he met a Dutchess to be (Jessica Biel). They shared a brief flare of up of adolescent lust and adoration and then she was swept from him on the power of Austria's 20th century class system. Years later he has returned to Vienna, triumphantly, with the ability to create the most entertaining illusions the city has ever seen. In a matter of moments he has set the audience a blaze, but it is only one person whose affection he seeks: that of the Dutchess, all grown up. Sadly the Dutchess is engaged to the cunning, emotional Crown Prine Leopold (Rufus Suwell) who has in his employ the chief investigator Uwle (Paul Giamatti).

Thus sets off a deadly game, a battle of love and will, of skill and perception, and ultimately one that vanishes like a puff of wind. As Leopold's interest in Eisenheim develops into obsession, as the Dutchess rekindles her fascination with the magician, and as Uwle is drawn further into investigating the mind of such a brilliant performer, Eisenheim stands back stone-faced watching it all.

There though is my sole problem with the film, and one that still nags me hours later. The first half of the movie had a sort of glorified magic to it, a pop romanticism with the way it treated Eisenheim's magic. The farther the movie goes on the more interested Burger, who wrote and directed the film, becomes in the emotional foundations of each character. Unfortuantely the emtional is of the wispiest sort and the whole production begins to lose it's once mesmerizing sheen. Though Edward Norton's gaze can burn a hole through the screen, the movie he's anchoring isn't worth the whole effort he gives out.