Trance

“Your mind is the scene of the crime” intoned the teaser trailer for Inception. It turns out it’s a tagline better suited for Trance, as hapless art thief Simon (James McAvoy) is forced to go through hypnotherapy to uncover the location of a Goya painting he lost after sustaining an amnesia-inducing bump to the head. His partner in crime Franck (Vincent Cassel) thinks he’s onto a sure thing by enlisting the help of Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), a shrink who is every bit as persuasive as she is seductive. What they don’t anticipate, however, is to uncover some buried memories in Simon’s subconscious that might prove to be more than they can handle…  

One thing that can be noticed from Danny Boyle’s back catalogue is that for better or worse, he rarely sticks to a single genre. Think about it, would you be able to pin down Trainspotting exclusively as a black comedy? The first act maybe, but then there’s the bit with the dead baby crawling across the ceiling. The Beach had us thinking we were in for a healthy dose of philosophical escapism, until Leo started wondering the jungle convinced he was in a cheap-looking videogame. And 127 Hours, with all its urine close-ups and shadow-lurking Scoody Doo dolls, is more akin to a psychedelic music video than it is to a survival drama.

By the same token Trance opens as a heist flick, but soon reveals itself to be an enigma wrapped in a riddle, repackaged as a whodunit with sugar on top, dipped in yoghurt. Eagle-eyed, cynical-minded viewers will no doubt do their best to stay two steps ahead of the plot and some may well be able to figure out the twist(s?) early on, but that’s no way to enjoy a film so intricately crafted by one of Britain’s finest directors. Danny Boyle has always been more concerned with style rather than substance – after all, 127 Hours was little more than an excuse to flex his filmmaking muscles over 90 minutes of footage – and throughout his latest feature he often advances the narrative via his signature quirks, such as crash zooms, unconventional POVs and fixations with assorted textures (if anything, this is the first time Boyle has dedicated this much attention to female genitalia).    

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is one of those films that is frustratingly difficult to review without spoiling the plot, which leaves little room for further discussion. Not even the performances can be mulled over without giving too much away. Everyone involved plays their role to the best of their abilities and James McAvoy cements his reputation as the new Ewan McGregor (although when comparing their track records, it would be more fair to call Ewan “the old James McAvoy”), but that’s pretty much your lot. All you need to know is that Trance is an intellectually rewarding film that will have you both gripped and intrigued all the way through. The best way to enjoy it is to go in knowing nothing and come out questioning everything you’ve just seen. It’s that kind of film.

4/5