Review: Trance

Review: Trance

If, like me, you enjoy a particularly cool trend known as "retro", you may have once upon a time played the game Snake which was of course a huge hit on mobile phones. The snake goes round and round, eating up points and circling itself, but if the player makes one wrong move then the snake hits itself and it's game over.

Danny Boyle's current movie Trance is exactly like a game of Snake. The narrative is twisty, the plot points are thrown at us in waves and the expectations of the psychological thriller genre are turned on its head to great effect but the story becomes convoluted. Despite an incredible first half, the latter fails to measure up to the promise delivered by this usually fantastic director. Trance winds up twisting into itself so much so that when we finally reach the end, there is a lingering question: what was the point of all that? Game over.

That's not at all to say that Trance isn't a work of brilliance. Sublime artistic direction from Boyle and incredible performances from the three leads James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel ensure that the movie is gripping and psychologically unsettling. There's just something about the twist-a-minute script that irritates - sometimes less is more. Throw in an ambiguous ending that's basically a rip off of Inception and Boyle's latest feels much less hypnotic than it should have been.

It is hypnotic though: there's something brilliant about McAvoy's voice over in the opening moments describing to us the importance of an auctioned painting and the procedures in place to prevent it from being stolen. "No piece of art is worth a human life," McAvoy's Simon says, but when a heist takes place for a painting worth over £25million, he is knocked unconscious after trying to be a hero. 

The painting is lost, however, as Simon cut the art from its canvas before the criminals caught it. With no memory of where he stashed it, Simon is interrogated brutally by Frank (Cassel) and his criminal gang. When physical torture doesn't work, Frank forces Simon to see hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Dawson) to delve into his mind and find where the painting is. As Elizabeth breaks further and further into Simon's subconscious, the lines between truth, lies and suggestion begin to blur for everyone.

Sounds a lot like Inception, right? Well, it's not all it seems. Where Inception had epic James Bond-inspired set pieces, Trance focuses more on the interaction between its three leads, using effectively off-putting camera work and stylish cinematography to throw our expectations out of the window. As usual Boyle has a decent sense of humour even when it comes to the creepy or gory elements of the scenes and he has clearly enjoyed playing with what we have come to understand about the psychological "mind" genre.

McAvoy anchors us down though. The Scottish actor is fantastic in his lead role balancing borderline insanity well with emphatic, understated curiosity and helplessness while Dawson and Cassel play the good guy/bad guy (delete where appropriate) pretty well giving the already topsy turvy plot some more ambiguity and curiosity.

Superficial pleasures aside Trance does boast an impressive story which, despite its lacklustre final 45 minutes, entertains and intrigues in equal measure. However, sometimes less is more and before long the relentless twist after twist becomes tiresome until by the time the final plot reveal has been let loose we're just not that bothered. The emotional impact of these three characters and their experiences with each other is lost amongst the labyrinth that is the plot.

Summary

Pulsing with style and effortless genius, the first half of Trance is some of Danny Boyle's best work to date. Unfortunately however, as we learn more and more about the three lead characters and our suspicion and curiosity is toyed with, the shocks are weakened thanks to a story which bends in on itself with little impact. That said, this tale of hypnosis does hold the attention from start to finish and for all its flaws (particularly its unoriginal ending) it still has most of the genius and wit of any thriller you'd expect from the man behind Shallow Grave and Slumdog Millionaire.

7/10 - Good

See it if you liked: Shallow Grave (1994), Inception (2010), Looper (2012)