REEL CRITICS:’The Illusionist’ needs no tricks to delight

Shouting “make us disappear,” Sophie tells Edward moments before they are found and separated by armed guards in “The Illusionist.”

The Duchess Sophie is returned to her family. Edward, the peasant son of a cabinet maker, leaves town. Fifteen years pass before they see each other again.

“The Illusionist” is a beguiling film for a number of reasons. The time and place is set in a bygone era and good casting and a story line focused on a rarely used subject matter gives the audience a new movie-going experience.

The story takes place at the turn of the 20th Century in Vienna. The cobblestone streets crowded with horse-drawn carriages take their male passengers about town on business. Being the tail end of the Victorian Age, the women never venture out without chaperons. Commoners don’t mingle with royal families, especially those who are the future kings and queens like Sophie. Although poor families like Edward marry for love, royalty enters into wedlock to gain or increase their power, as Prince Leopold intends to do.

To create the bygone era, old-time movie making techniques are used to capture the mood and atmosphere. Flickering blurred sepia toned images are used to depict Edward’s time apart from Sophie. The aura of mystery it casts over that period in his life enhances his powers. Edward becomes first a magician, then an illusionist, a person using slight of hand to create illusions.

As the last frame from his apprenticeship to mastery years fades into dark shadows, the blurry sepia tones give way to brighter sharper colors on his return to Vienna. He arrives back home to perform on stage as Eisenheim the Illusionist. People come to see his show initially to be entertained. Later, after his tricks become other-worldly in nature, his followers pay to see him as believers in his abilities to manipulate life on the other side. It’s all part of Edward’s plan to be reunited with Sophie.

But plans go awry. The king’s power-hungry son, Prince Leopold, plans on marrying Sophie to unseat his father. Learning of her past relationship with Eisenheim from his minion, Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), the prince decides to keep them apart by running the magician out of town.

Edward/Eisenheim, however, will never let himself be separated from Sophie again. And Leopold will never let a commoner best him.

Good casting makes “The Illusionist” an enjoyable experience. Giamatti’s performance as the sycophant Uhl is one reason. The actor is suited for period films. He proved that in “Cinderella Man,” playing the fighter’s manager. And Giamatti’s ability to personify characters eager to solve mysteries and follow the rules — like “Lady in the Water” — is a perfect match here. His character, Uhl, pursues and dogs Edward throughout the story partly on behalf of the prince but also to learn how the magic acts are done.

He’s relentless. He is also the story’s narrator. “The Illusionist” is as much about Uhl as it is Edward.

Edward Norton (“Fight Club,” “The Score”) is the film’s focal point and main point of energy in the story. Covering his face with a goatee and moustache, along with his combed back pompadour, leaves us no place to look at him beyond his dark piercing eyes. He possesses attractive qualities, such as spending his life finding a way to get the love of his life back. That’s an irresistible trait in anyone, but in Norton, it’s super sexy.

Living in the Victorian Age, Sophie is ready for the confining social mores to come to an end. Older than 20 and single, she’s defiant but not enough because she’s looking to Edward to save her from the prince. All Jennifer Biel has to be is beautiful in the film and convince us that what Edward and Leopold end up doing in the end was because she is worth the price they pay.

Eisenheim’s magic tricks are an added bonus, even though they are Hollywood’s edited tricks. But the Vienna audience believes his act so works it on magic on us as we watch them shake their heads in bewilderment and shake Eisenheim’s hand in admiration. Their belief becomes our belief. When that happens, “The Illusionist” is a most pleasant experience.