Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson
A stylish thriller, Danny
Boyle's Trance tries to bend our minds with hypnotism, yet only
manages to path way for predictability. Opening in the classic Boyle
style, a disjointed montage shows us the stasis of the protagonist
James McAvoy's Simon, a Fine Art auctioneer forced to aid a heist to
pay off a gambling debt. A dry voiceover takes us through the event
and to the key problem- a hit on the head has left Simon with amnesia
and he cannot remember where he has hidden the painting. Desperate
Franck (Vincent Cassel), the head of the organisation, hires Harley
Street hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) to find the memory
in his mind. The film then plays out in a number of trances, leaving
the audience to decipher the difference between truth and imagination
within the character's mind.
Boyle keeps the strong
visual style present in all his work vivid throughout the film,
allowing the audience to submerge themselves in the trances. This
works to create a sense of ambiguity surrounding the information
gained from the hypnotherapy sessions and leads the audience to
question the intention of each character. The narrative gets a bit
too clever for its own good in the final act, leading to a plot twist
that whilst well laid, does not have enough integrity to be believed.
This is because of the difficulties in developing characters other
than Simon when the majority of the film takes place inside his head.
The film remains an
enjoyable watch, as with all of Boyle's work, with the integral
problems lying with the script. There is an opportunity in the last
third to flip everything one more time, but is turned away in favour
of providing the audience with solid answers. In a film actively
trying to be ambiguous, the end is in the wrong style. Leaving a
narrative as subjective as Trance open to interpretation would have
provided a needed distraction from the other flaws in the story. As
it is, Trance is an enjoyable, well made thriller that thinks its
much cleverer than it is.
3/5
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