This is a gripping, whirlwind of a movie. You have to pay attention, but the way it plays with your mind as much as the characters is clever. You have to be able to go with it, but this is cool, stylish film, with arresting visuals and hypnotic music. Good performances too from McAvoy and Dawson. It twists and turns througout and Danny Boyle does just enough to get you to the end. Worth watching if you have the intelligence to stay with it.
this had me lost after 30 mins, I didn't know what was reality and what was hypnotic.. Danny Boyle has made did films but this isn't one of them
Director Danny Boyle's enthralling film starts as a caper movie but soon moves into a mystery crime thriller that blurs the realms of fantasy and reality to create a really interesting story. During the heist of an auction house a priceless Goya painting goes missing. The gang, led by Frank (Vincent Cassel) believe their inside man Simon (James McAvoy) has double crossed them and taken it for himself. But he claims that being struck on the head during the robbery has left him with amnesia and he doesn't remember anything. So Frank sends him to renowned hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) in the hope she can release his suppressed memories. Only Elizabeth sees an opportunity to play a dangerous game of her own. This is one of those films where you never can really tell who is telling the truth and because of the hypnosis plot also what is real or in the mind of the various characters. It's a brilliantly constructed film and even after watching it and seeing the various plot lines get unravelled you still want to watch again. It's quite gripping and very gritty in places with some sudden shocks. The sea change in the various characters is well written as the weak turn out strong and vice-versa. I admire Boyle's ease at attempting a variety of genres and with this Hitchcockian themed thriller he succeeds. yes it's all far fetched in regards the power of hypnosis on which the entire plot rests but that can be put aside because this is a damn good story.
With a premise that centres on multi-million dollar art, amnesia and hypnotherapy Trance could have been an over dramatic and pretentious thriller; in the hands of acclaimed Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle however it is a tense and captivating mystery drama.
With such heightened sexual tensions the film practically reverberates with the tangible thrum of Rosario Dawson’s physique, coupled with her provocative therapy techniques and the dark but undeniably sexual character played by Vincent Cassel, James McAvoy’s art auctioneer Simon doesn’t have a chance.
Interestingly mirroring the still unsolved theft of Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee which went missing from the Massachusetts museum in 1990 Trance sees the very same painting stolen from an auction house shortly after the hammer falls down at $27 million. Simon, whose involvement in the theft is dubious at best, takes a nasty knock on the head that sends him to hospital and leaves him with significant memory loss. Under the duress of the implicitly dangerous Franck (Cassel) Simon begins hypnotherapy in an attempt to regain his memories of that fabled night.
As with any thriller with a really gripping story the allegiances of various characters and the audience’s suspicions are constantly in flux, weaving this way and that like an entranced Cobra who, the moment you stop to take a breath, will strike with deadly accuracy. Once again Boyle has created a strong and intense piece from the palest of skeletal structures; making Trance a very good, albeit far from Boyle at his best, film.