Trance (2013)

Film: Trance (2013)

Stars: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel

Director: Danny Boyle

Oscar History: No-despite Boyle’s recent of success with the Academy, this film was on almost no one’s radar upon release.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We all have the things that we’re susceptible to, the filmic genres where we are far more forgiving regardless of the quality of the actual movies.  As someone who is partially recommending a film with a review (or not recommending it, when the case), I have to be aware of this for myself, and three genres in particular I tend to like more than your average person: film noir, classic horror movies, and caper/heist films.  Trance, our film of today, falls into this last genre, and when I saw the art auction at the beginning of the movie, I knew I would have to check myself before I geeked out.  Luckily for my reviewer’s side, and unluckily for those of us who wanted to enjoy the film, as the movie progressed, I couldn’t quite get into the film and it was an admittedly interesting film that fails the further along it goes.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie tells the story of Simon (McAvoy), a low-level security guard at an auction house, who decides to hatch a plan with a crime boss named Franck (Cassel) to make off with a beautiful Goya painting.  Simon for some reason we never 100% figure out (or if we do, Ahearne/Hodge’s script is so convoluted I didn’t catch it) decides to attack Franck while the heist is going on, and in the process suffers a major head injury.  Because this is a movie, this of course means amnesia, and we soon realize that the actual painting is missing and the only person who knows where it is is Simon, who of course cannot remember where he put it or why he double-crossed Franck.

This leads Simon to a hypnotist named Elizabeth Lamb (Dawson), a wily woman who figures out rather quickly (too quickly, of course, and as this is a heist/mystery film, we know not to trust her completely) that Simon isn’t there to find his lost car keys, but instead to figure out where he put the painting.  Through hypnotism (I’m never 100% on believing hypnotism is real, but I do believe people can be susceptible to it) we learn secrets from Simon’s, and conversely Elizabeth’s past, and while we do eventually learn the location of the painting, that becomes less the point as we deduce the violent places the movie is going.

The first half of the film is a standard-fare film mystery, and works quite well.  McAvoy is charming as hell, Dawson incredibly beautiful and far more talented than most of the roles she gets, and Cassel, while boxed into his usual angry bad guy role, is a sexy SOB if nothing else.  Personality is important to a film like this, as we have to stay invested in the mystery as the clues very slowly unfold, and so some sort of interest in the film’s players is vital to a successful rollout of the plot.

However, the second half goes in every kitchen sink direction-we learn that Elizabeth had a past relationship with Simon, that he was abusive, and that he had a bizarre fascination with pubic hair (in a scene that serves little purpose other than to titillate the viewers with Rosario Dawson’s naked body).  It’s hard not to see the name of the director here and mumble, “Danny Boyle” in a derogatory way.  Boyle is a much-heralded, Oscar-winning director, but I am not remotely a fan.  I feel like at some point I will see Trainspotting (it’s part of the OVP) and am hopeful that this is the film that I can finally reference as a movie I like of Boyle’s, but I hate the way he puts together his pictures.  They rely so completely on the same tropes: heavy orange-lighting, extreme low angle shots, and in particular violence and bodily functions to stun the audience.  His movie Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars, but what few noted at the time is that the characters are paper thin and the plot is meandering and predictable.  The plot of Trance is thick, but also muddled, and with every twist we slip slowly away from reality and further into the dreamscapes of a mad man.  Boyle may be trying to hint that we’re still hypnotized, but the movie’s ending (which is too cheeky to even mention) dismisses that notion.  Instead, we just get a series of plot twists that head nowhere.

Have you seen this relatively minor film in the Boyle canon?  Did you enjoy it?  Do you also wish someone would just write Rosario Dawson a great role to see what she could do?  And on your celebrity boyfriend list-are you more into James McAvoy or Vincent Cassel?  Share in the comments!