Written by Linda
March 07, 2009
Illusion is an earnest, and eventually moving independent film that plays as a cross between It's a Wonderful Life and Cinema Paradiso. Kirk Douglas plays Donal Baines, a crotchety Hollywood film director who for all practical purposes is on his deathbed. He will leave behind career of classic romance films, but no wife or children... that he speaks of at least. Not too subtley, we see that he sneaks guilty peeks at the school picture of a young boy—a photo which he hides in his bedside book. It is obvious that Donal has some regrets, and he will soon be allowed to relive them in an unusual way.
He slips into a dreamstate (or is he already dead, he wonders?) when he is visited by a old friend of his, his favorite film editor. Except the problem is that Stan (Ron Marasco) has been dead for 30 years. Stan takes Donal, bed and all, to a classic old movie theater and tells him he is in for a treat (in addition to being allowed the luxury of smoking a cigarette). Stan tells the projectionist to roll 'em, and Donal sees a film version of the life of the son he abandoned—a boy who was the result of an unmemorable one-night stand.
Christopher is his name, and he is played at three stages of his life (teenager, 20-something, and 30-something) impressively by the same actor, Michael Goorjian (who also directed Illusion). A neat trick that Illusion pulls off is showing these three stages as mini-genre films of their own. Christopher's dorky teenage segment, when he is wooing the mysterious and distant popular girl Isabelle (Karen Tucker), plays like a broad John Hughes teen flick. His 20-something chapter is more arty and edgy, with Christopher playing a gothy member of a performance art troupe in San Francisco. And his final segment is a more intropective drama, as he tries once again to unite with Isabelle, the love of his life.
Goorjian explained at the screening that the film was made over five years, with Christopher's scenes filmed chronologically (which I'm sure helped the actor "age" onscreen as well). This labor of love is reflected in the quality of the movie as it progresses. At first I kind of squirmed at the thought of sitting through it after the teenage scenes; but it got progressively better, and I found that I was moved by the finale. Douglas does an admirable job, even though he is there mainly to show reaction to Christopher's story, just like we as the audience do. His speech is sometimes hard to understand (from his stroke in the mid-90s), but at the same time I realized that you never see characters like his on screen... folks suffering from very real-life physical conditions. So, go Kirk!
Illusion, above all, becomes rather life-affirming. Some of the plot points are over-the-top (let's just say that chunks of Christopher's life are spent off-screen in prison due to odd mishaps), but Illusion has its heart in the right place. A story about second chances, not to mention imperfect parent/child relationships, Illusion has universal themes that should appeal to audiences that can find the film in its limited release.
