Danny Boyle is a British film director, for those of you who don't know. He does good work, or so I've heard. While I haven't ever seen Slumdog Millionaire or 127 Hours (both his work), even years after their release people are raving about them. He also did the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympic games which, if you remember, were fantastic (the ceremonies I mean.) I've been dying to see a Danny Boyle movie since the Olympics.
I was in London recently, where they have this new film called Trance. I knew nothing about it except 1. It starred James McAvoy, and 2. Danny Boyle was the director. Either of these things would be enough to make me see a movie, and put together, I had to. Not only that, but we don't have to film in the U.S (at least, we didn't at the time. We do now) so I thought this might be my only chance to see it.
James McAvoy plays Simon, a fine art auctioneer who gets involved with criminals who steal paintings. One day, Simon steals a painting that was just about to be sold for 27 million pounds, but then he gets hit on the head and forgets what he did with it. In an effort to bring back his memory, he starts to see a hypnotherapist (which is where the title comes from- the hypnotherapist can include trances). And then there's a whole lot of sex and bullets to the head and everyone goes crazy and eventually they blow up a car and everyone lives happily ever after.
Really. I have no idea what happened in this movie. I was so hopeful, too- I mean, it starts off really well. The first ten minutes is James McAvoy giving a very nice monologue in a very cute accent and you can tell it would all be a perfect segue into something if they structured it right. But they do not structure it right, and twenty minutes later, James McAvoy has convinced everyone in the theatre that he is the King of All Jerkfaces and the story has gone from "wow this could be really good" to "ugh what is this?" at least, I think so. It was hard to tell because the explanations are not really explanations, and I had no idea what was going on. Twenty minutes after that, the movie has become less of a story, and is basically just alternating shots of sex scenes and people getting shot and the whole time I'm thinking "that was a waste of a perfectly good monologue."
To be fair, this was an original screenplay, and it was not Danny Boyle's. He did a perfectly fine job as a director on most fronts. Cinematically, it was a decent film (by which I mean, it was quality acting and some pretty good cinematography. Minus all random sex montages.) But he was the one who said he wanted this script, so I'm disappointed with him for that. The dialogue, while being very artistic and at times thought provoking, did nothing to explain the plot, and the confusion kept me from seeing what may have been good moments. He took 8 weeks off from planning the Opening Ceremonies to do this film to "replenish his creative juices" or something. But you can tell he only spent 8 weeks on it.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you have some weird fetish for creepy hypnotherapy, then by all means, go see it.
UK poster:
Slightly more trippy US poster:
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