Film Review: Trance

Look into my eyes...... Look into my eyes. And strap yourself in for a mind-bending ride.

 

What’s It All About?

When an art heist goes awry, a London art auctioneer with amnesia and an angry crime lord putting the squeeze on employ a hypnotist to help uncover the missing piece.

The Verdict: It can border on the ludicrous but sit back and suspend belief and Trance is quite the engrossing, sexy mind bender.

3.5/5.0 from me, Margaret

Just how powerful is hypnotism? Very, if you believe this serpentine thriller, the latest from the equally shifty – genre wise at least – director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later).

In the aftermath of a central London art heist, auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy, The Last King of Scotland) finds himself in hospital with a blow to the head. He realises he’s party to the heist just not why and more pressingly, where the missing Goya is.

"You'll either come away wondering what the hell just happened or you'll want to see it again to piece the puzzle together."

"Mention Mr Tumnus and you're toast."

The heist orchestrator, crime king pin Franck (Vincent Cassel, Irreversible) and his band of henchmen want to know its whereabouts – yesterday – and readily apply some fingernail twitching torture to Simon to get him talking. But when Franck realises Simon really is suffering amnesia it’s time for a visit to high street hypnotist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson, Seven Pounds) to uncover the truth.

And what a truth it is or should that be ‘What is the truth?’. Like mind-bending movies that have come before it (Memento, Shutter Island) you become unsure quite what’s a manifestation of the mind and where a character sits on the good-to-bad meter.




"Ok, Ok one question about Tumnus"

 

That’s the draw and distraction of the screenplay written by Joe Ahern (who wrote the 2001 telemovie the film is based on) and John Hodge (Trainspotting). It constantly plays with your expectations, flashing forward and back, showing shards of the story to keep you guessing. I wondered every now and then if it was trying to be a little too clever, wearing it’s manipulation a little too much on it’s sleeve.



Vincent realised he'd been framed

And you do need to suspend belief with a lot of the story’s potency relying on just how tangible a power you believe hypnotherapy to be and how fractured a person’s memory and personality can become.

Still, it’s all done with gritty determination and style with the film’s look resembling some kind of shiny, fervently primary coloured dream.

There’s sharp performances too from the three leads; McAvoy is charismatic and disturbing, Dawson evokes an intriguingly atypical yet sexy femme fatale and Cassel is suitably mercurial. Boyle meanwhile continues to prove his diversity (he shot Trance in the lead up to his celebrated masterminding of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony).

Ultimately, Trance engages for the most part. You'll either come away wondering what the hell just happened or you'll want to see it again to piece the puzzle together. Or both.