Trance Review

• 21st Mar 2013

James McAvoy plays Simon, an art auctioneer who gets mixed up in a bit of art theft. Sadly he gets a rather nasty blow to the head from head robber Vincent Cassel, and as a result has to attend a bit of therapy courtesy of Rosario Dawson’s Hypnotist. But is all as it seems?

Without spoiling anything it is fair to say that the trailer for the film hints that there may be a few twists and turns along the way. But the trouble with Trance is that – despite a fairly simple plot with a few turns of events aside – it soon becomes clear that (the last third of the film in particular) is all about mounting up the twists and turns until eventually you end up in a right mess where everything may just about make sense, but makes very little sense at the same time.

This film is the almighty definition of “style over substance.” But what style it is!  And the substance is probably best kept to the minimum anyway.

After stumbling out of the screening the important question you have to ask is whether you enjoyed yourself or not – and it is in the answer to this question where most people will either come down hard on trance with a two-star rated rant about the overly complex turns of events, or will talk it up in a four-star rated praise pointing not only to the clever way that it all just about fits together, but in the way that Danny Boyle kept the energy of the piece going with three very good performances and some very stylised direction and editing.

It was in the edit you can tell where Boyle had most of his fun though. Anyone who thinks that this was a quick thriller he wanted to get out there to bide his time between prestige projects is having a laugh. Clearly planning went into the design of this thing, and clearly he’s worked hard in the edit suite to work on colours, focus, POV and sound. It just doesn’t seem possible for him to make a lazy film. Even if it isn’t as great as some of his previous efforts; there is still active film-making joy throbbing in the man’s veins.

Steven Hurst