Clearly it is a slow day at work.

I saw The Illusionist last night. It’s a pure love triangle story between aristocratic Sophie, who is intended to marry the tantrum-throwing Crown Prince of Austria. However, she actually loves the working-class illusionist Eisenheim. After a thwarted childhood elopement, the two reunite about 15 years later. The Crown Prince hires Inspector Uhl to find out Eisenheim’s motives and magic tricks and somehow neutralize him, but Eisenheim threatens to use his magic so that he and Sophie can give the Crown Prince the ultimate slip.

While I saw the movie’s core as the aforesaid love triangle, the actual film wandered in different directions, taking a while to get started. Beginning with Eisenheim’s arrest by Uhl, the movie focuses so closely on Uhl [played by a very likeable Paul Giamatti, atoning for the BOMB Lady in the Water] that I hoped it would be a character study of him, but no such luck. The film then drifted into an extensive overview of Eisenheim’s life, which looked wonderfully atmospheric and sepia-drenched, like an early photo, but did nothing to provide insight into either Eisenheim or Sophie. The bulk of the film concerns Uhl investigating a cagey Eisenheim, who pisses off the easily pissable Crown Prince [played buffoonishly by Rufus Sewell, who clearly has bits of the scenery between his gnashing teeth] by remaining impenetrable. Not until Sophie threatens another elopement with Eisenheim does the plot really kick into gear. But wait…then there’s a whole red herring concerning spiritualism, which is an interesting subject in and of itself. But we don’t spend too long on that because somebody is dead apparently. The Illusionist frustrated me most by giving itself the perfect opportunity for a tight little character study — the close focus of a love triangle — and then meandering and digressing so that I was only half engaged when the romance and mystery really buckled down.

Anyway, I did like The Illusionist for its twilight, sfumato atmosphere, not murky, but smudgy and mysterious. Also Paul Giamatti does a really good job, a serious, smart guy with dorky tendencies, basically kind but drawn against his knowledge into questionable circles through his association with the immature Crown Prince. His character tracked an interesting, rather subtle, development from slavish devotion to the Prince to independent intelligence and an appreciation of Eisenheim’s cleverness. In this way, The Illusionist is a portrayal of Uhl as the quintessential groupie: a man who admires the illusionist because the illusionist represents the best potential of himself, something that he himself wishes to attain.