The Illusionist Review

The Illusionist is a film that tells the story of Eisenheim and Prince Leopold, which takes place after Uhl's visit to the theater to arrest Eisenheim for sorcery disguised as magic.

Eisenheim is the son of a cabinetmaker who, when he was young, met a wizard along the way. This magician he met does some magic tricks and after a while he disappears. This makes Eisenheim obsessed with magic and magic tricks from this particular fact.

Illusionist Story Summary

The story of the illusionist begins to unfold when Eisenheim travels through unknown lands, during this journey he perfects his magic and returns after several years as a professional illusionist.

In one of his performances he meets a girl named Sophie who volunteers for the evil Crown Prince Leopold by participating in one of his shows.

Here he finds out that Sophie is engaged to the prince who is reputed to be a lout. Eisenheim after some scenes realizes that Sophie is still in love with him , so they plan to run away, but to do so, they must do something to neutralize Leopold who is seeking to seize the Crown of Austria from Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Leopoldo realizes that Sophie is dating Eisenheim and forces her to marry him to which she refuses. This makes Leopoldo appear to kill her with a sword, all without arousing suspicion due to Leopoldo's status despite the fact that he was reputed to have killed another woman in the past.

The development of the plot

After Eisenheim finds out, he tries new types of shows and uses strange new equipment. The magician also buys a deteriorated theater.

Leopold attends an Eisenheim show in disguise. During this show Eisenheim does a trick and Sophie's spirit appears and says that someone who is in that theater murdered her which scares Leopoldo.

Here Leopold orders Eisenheim arrested but when they try to do so, he disappears with a magic trick.

The inspector begins the search for the now fugitive magician, and goes to his house to look for him. Here he finds books that have intrigued Inspector Uhl and tries to find out some secrets of the tricks, however when he opens the books he sees that the pages are empty.

He only found a paper that shows how to open the locket that Eisenheim gave Sophie when they were young. Here we return to the opening scene where Uhl reveals to Leopold that he has found incriminating evidence linking him to Sophie's murder; a jewel from the prince's sword and Sophie's locket that Eisenheim had given her when they were children.

The end

After Leopold almost beseechingly orders Uhl to keep quiet, he realizes that Uhl had already told the Emperor of Leopold's plans to storm the throne.

Here the army arrives at the palace to arrest him but Leopoldo shoots himself after criticizing democracy since "there are too many voices crying out to be heard" and therefore nothing was going to be done.

Uhl then appears leaving the Imperial Palace when a boy intercepts him and hands him a folder with an orange label. Uhl asks where the boy got that from and the boy tells him that Eisenheim had given it to him.

Uhl can see Eisenheim in a disguise and chases him to the train station, and here we see a montage where Uhl begins to realize how Eisenheim faked Sophie's death and framed Prince Leopold. Uhl doesn't get upset contrary to what all of us would think.

Eisenheim is then shown walking to a house in the country where Sophie is waiting for him, and here the film ends.

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