Any discussion of Sylvain Chomet’s beautiful new animated feature, The Illusionist, can’t ignore the film’s unusual origin. Chomet adapated the film from an unproduced script by the late French actor/writer/director Jacques Tati, which reportedly was a sort of dramatized letter of apology to his eldest daughter, who he abandoned when she was still quite young. Chomet, though, claimed the script was actually written for a younger daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, who gave Chomet the screenplay, and whose name appears in the finished film’s dedications. There’s a great deal of controversy over Tati’s true intentions in writing this story, all of which makes for some fascinating reading. Now that it’s been mentioned, though, it can really be dismissed as largely irrelevant to the film that resulted.