"Illusionist" question?

Question

Okay, I watched the movie last night, and I have a question about the ending...so how does it exactly end? The investigator guy gets the book about the orange tree (obvious part). How exactly does he figure out how the trick works?

And what did the wine being poured into Sophie's mouth tie in?

There was so many different shots going on, it was kind of hard for me to tie everything in.

Answer 1

Crown Prince Leopold had been drugged and the rest of what happened was staged to make him look like he mortally wounded Sophie in the barn. Remember the stones that the magician broke off the royal sword earlier in the movie.

It wasn't until the end of the story that the police detective figures out what happened, i.e., how Eisenheim, the magician, and Sophie drugged the prince and made it look like he stabbed her using the sword, and how they covered it all up by making sure the magician found the body and his accomplice declared the girl dead before anyone else had a chance to see she was merely unconscious (drugged or revived via the wine she drank, I forget wish).

The prince was destined to die or at the very least, undermine the stability of the royal house of Vienna, because of this crime--though framed. Sophie, as a result, would be free to marry whom she pleased and that is what the magician was after, her freedom.

Answer 2

ok the wine revived sophie and he realized the investigator realized that everything that the illusionist did let up to the sucide and implication of the dead fiance

Answer 3

It's like watching a car crash..
Everybody sees it differently.
Best bet ........watch it again.
The orange tree trick was
described in detail in the book.

Answer 4

It was all hocus-pocus.
Cause in the end,she was alive,and
they lived happily ever after.