"Do you want to remember, or do you want to forget?"
This one frustrated the hell out of me. Sure, Danny Boyle is an incredible director with a more than impressive back catalogue, but there's just too many missteps in this latest directorial outing of his; a fact that kept me from enjoying it very much at all. It came out in the spring of 2013 to a mixed bag of reviews, and it stars James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel in the leading roles. Where as some critiques hailed it as one of the most clever and suspenseful thrillers to have come out in years, a lot of regular moviegoers felt that Trance was way too convoluted and incoherent, which undeniably is the main reason why it underperformed as severely as it did at the box office. The movie ultimately fell under the radar as a result of bad word of mouth and mixed critical acclaim, but I still think there's plenty of reasons for me to review it here on my blog.
In Trance, Simon (McAvoy), a member of the security staff at an art auction house in London, is hit in the head when he takes it upon himself to try and stop a set of thieves from getting away with a very valuable painting. As it turns out though, this bash to the skull has made Simon insomniac, a fact that gets him into a whole bunch of problems with different kinds of people. He eventually seeks the help of a hypnotherapist in an attempt to regain his memory, and as the two of them start to grow closer, a whole lot of weird and intermingled stuff starts happening.
The main reason why I really wanted to write about this movie, is that I've never had as many mixed feelings about a piece of cinema as I have about Trance. The good things about it are truly impressive and admirable, but on the contrary, the bad stuff is equally frustrating, stupid and poorly executed. It's a weird mix to deal with really, and watching Trance is one of the more polarizing experiences I've had a quite some time. I guess "Style over substance" is the bast way to sum it up shortly, because even though it's one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in 2013 in terms of cinematography, editing and sound design, Trance is also one of worst written and most disappointing ones I've laid my eyes upon all year.
Okay, let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. Even though its opening heist-scene was as close to being perfectly executed as can be, the plot of this movie turned out to be crazily stupid, overly complicated, way too convenient, ridiculously unbelievable, massively disappointing and facepalm inducingly bad. Too many of the vital events are too far fetched and unfathomable, all of the many twist and turns are way too misplaced and underwhelming, and hypnosis, which is the main plot device of the entire movie, is handled in an infuriatingly empty, bland and unconvincing manner. On top of that, almost all of the minor plot devices feel either misplaced, misused or overly staged. Whether it be gun cartridges, zip-ties, books, iPads, car keys, Romanian war veterans or women's pubic hair (yep), none of the clues and hints in this movie work the way they were intended to, and the shockers, revelations and surprises that they were meant to be a part of, sadly never amount to more than a semi-raised eyebrow or a slight scratching of the forehead.
As if all those things weren't enough, there's even more ground for me to cover in the negatives-section of this review, such as the female lead. Rosaria Dawson did alright in the role of Elizabeth, the weird, indecisive and bipolar hypnotherapist who tries to help Simon regain his memory, but her character is just so poorly written, forgetable, misused and weak that I couldn't help but disliking her every time she popped up on the screen (which is very often). She's supposed to be this deep, wounded and mysterious type of person, but every time something "shocking" about her character was done or revealed and she was supposed to look all mysterious and stubborn, the character just didn't fit the bill at all. It felt as if someone was showing me around in a tall, expensive and impressive looking building, whilst they were trying to convince me that it was build by a very determined and strong 8-year-old girl. No matter how hard that little girl tries to convince me that she build the enormous construction without any help, there's just no way I'm going to believe her, and the same goes for the hypnotherapist and her actions in Trance.
That's it folks, we're through with the negative stuff this time around. Even though there are a lot of negative things to be said about Mr. Boyle's latest movie, almost all of the positive elements that it does contain completely blew me off my feet. Let's take the sound design for an example. Everyone knows what music is capable of doing to the human mind on it's own, but surprisingly few people realize just how important it can be in movies as well, and Trance is a picture perfect example of that. Describing sound with written words is no easy task, so you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that they got it just right in this film. Scenes that wouldn't have amounted to anything on their own were saved by a crisp and engaging score, otherwise dull and edgeless revelations were held up by off kilter and nerve wracking sound effects, and conversations that were heading straight towards pitch black and bottomless pits were kept alive by engaging and gripping electronic music. That's what music can do.
Music and sound effect aside, Anthony Dod Mantle, who's Danny Boyle's go to cinematographer, just might be the biggest star of this entire movie. His camerawork in movies such as 127 Hours, The Celebration and especially Rush impressed me quite a lot, but I've never seen him be on top of his game the same way that he is in Trance. Every single frame of the movie is hypnotisingly beautiful to look at, and the fact that the idea of turning off the movie didn't occur to me even once during its runtime, despite of all the bad things I had to say about it, should give you an impression of just how impressed I was by the visual effort that went into creating Trance. On top of all this, the movie is meticulously edited as well, and especially some of the mind bending dream sequences that James McAvoy's character finds himself in proves that. As far as I'm concerned, Trance is an early frontrunner for Academy awards such as the ones for best editing, best cinematography, best sound design and best musical score.
Now that everything is said and done, I hope you're capable of understanding just how mixed my feelings about this movie truly are. Recommending it to anyone is hard for me to do, because of how truly awful the story and some of the characters are. There are a lot of equally beautiful and impressive things in this movie as well though; things that are truly worthy of my highest amount of praise and adoration. Style over substance is the key word when describing this bastard child of a film, so if you're a fan of technical finesse and beautiful visuals, I guess giving Trance a go would be worth your time. Otherwise, just stay away entirely. I personally don't know whether I'd rather remember or forget having seen Danny Boyle's Trance, and as for a rating, I don't know what to give it either. Settling right between the eye gouging narrative and the magical visuals seems like the only way to go however, and as such, I'd say that Trance was worth the watch. (3/6)
Trance IMDb page here
Trance trailer link here
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