Directed by:
Danny BoyleCinematography:
Anthony Dod MantleComposer:
Rick SmithCast:
James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson, Tuppence Middleton, Sam Creed, Danny Sapani, Matt Cross, Simon Kunz, Spencer Wilding, Michael Shaeffer (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
A fine art auctioneer mixed up with a gang joins forces with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster than anyone could have anticipated. (Fox Searchlight Pictures US)
Videos (33)
Reviews (11)
An overcooked start. There is a voiceover, an unreliable narrator, an attractive plot, and expensive art. After twenty minutes, only a hint of the original idea remains, which surprisingly, even by Danny Boyle's standards, fails to reach a sufficiently high level with its piercing visual and thunderous musical accompaniment. I am all for surprising twists or the denial of clichés through lively passion. However, all of this must not happen at the expense of the viewer's engagement.
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A film that has an embellished but far-fetched plot. It was interesting, the actors were good, we never got sick of them even though there were only a few of them that we kept switching between; still, it somehow just couldn't hold my attention the whole time. The jumping from hypnosis to the real world and back is supposed to be interesting, the viewer is supposed to wonder what’s real and what’s not, yet I didn't see it that way. Instead it gave me a rather tired impression, which I only woke up from towards the end when the shooting started. Even though I wrote that the final payoff was excessive, it still fails to impress with a proper wow effect if the viewer has seen a few similar films. You can see through the smoke effects. But if Boyle wanted the viewer to feel sympathy for a man who gets a bundle at the end, he succeeded. A mediocre film.
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Danny Boyle is simply awesome. Trance is not his best movie, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is able to film literally anything. He had fun with the camera in a drug lair, in an Indian slum, near the Sun, with millions in his suitcase or he sweated for 127 hours in the mountains and this time for a change hypnosis plays a major role, and we see an entanglement of the whole story with the aim of preparing a shocking finale. And he succeeded. The movie may be a little too dynamic and a bit complicated, but that’s simply Boyle and that’s why I like him so much. The whole movie really has guts and every five minutes there is something happening that turns the story upside down. If you can accept that, you will be satisfied.
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After a second viewing, I had to go one star lower with my rating, because what I found original at first turned out to be annoying the second time around. I mean the endless series of big reveals that had me going around in circles for so long that it almost felt like having been hypnotized and put on a swing ride. Of the big revelations, the most interesting turned out to be the one delivered by Rosario Dawson. I liked Tuppence Middleton though only in a mini role, and McAvoy's slimy smile still haunts me at night.
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Danny Boyle scores points with his truly unmistakable style even in the field of a hard-to-classify psychological heist thriller, which is wonderfully subtle and actually quite unpredictable. An exemplary symbiosis of sound and image (one of the best "hypnotic" soundtracks used in the film), novel creative techniques (even a simple slap can be filmed and presented in an evocative and original way), and one of the top performances by Rosario Dawson, who must have been cast in this role by some casting genius. I like Boyle much better in this slightly unconventional and understated position (I’m looking at you, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire), as these types of more modest and intimate works give him much more scope to use his undeniable talent and original techniques.
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