Trance

Knock! Knock! Knock! A cute crime movie, cut precisely to suit today’s fashion. It’s just that hypnosis isn’t so central as PR tried to imply and the painting isn’t absolutely what this is about. Sanity, lies, anger, love and hate. Boyle mixed this cocktail following his own traditional recipe and his signature is apparent in almost every shot (the beaker thrown at the camera), maybe the trailers gave away too much. Cassel excellent, Rosario Dawson super smooth and McAvoy masterfully swaps roles and is the inconspicuous puppet master of the entire Trance. Delightful and not completely stupid. Rick Smith supervised the creation of the first-rate music. (07/13/2013)

Danny Boyle is simply awesome. Trance is not his best movie, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is able to film literally anything. He had fun with the camera in a drug lair, in an Indian slum, near the Sun, with millions in his suitcase or he sweated for 127 hours in the mountains and this time for a change hypnosis plays a major role, and we see an entanglement of the whole story with the aim of preparing a shocking finale. And he succeeded. The movie may be a little too dynamic and a bit complicated, but that’s simply Boyle and that’s why I like him so much. The whole movie really has guts and every five minutes there is something happening that turns the story upside down. If you can accept that, you will be satisfied. (10/16/2013)

After a second viewing, I had to go one star lower with my rating, because what I found original at first turned out to be annoying the second time around. I mean the endless series of big reveals that had me going around in circles for so long that it almost felt like having been hypnotized and put on a swing ride. Of the big revelations, the most interesting turned out to be the one delivered by Rosario Dawson. I liked Tuppence Middleton though only in a mini role, and McAvoy's slimy smile still haunts me at night. (08/15/2017)

Danny Boyle scores points with his truly unmistakable style even in the field of a hard-to-classify psychological heist thriller, which is wonderfully subtle and actually quite unpredictable. An exemplary symbiosis of sound and image (one of the best "hypnotic" soundtracks used in the film), novel creative techniques (even a simple slap can be filmed and presented in an evocative and original way), and one of the top performances by Rosario Dawson, who must have been cast in this role by some casting genius. I like Boyle much better in this slightly unconventional and understated position (I’m looking at you, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire), as these types of more modest and intimate works give him much more scope to use his undeniable talent and original techniques. (02/10/2019)

Boyle is similar to Nolan and Tarantino in that every film is original, yet he still maintains some of his traditional directing finesse. He attacks the audience with opulent minimalist visuals as well as dense psychology. Trance has excellent visual aesthetics, light manipulation, and a contemporary feeling. It captivates with a strong screenplay and the fact that despite the several script spirals and twists towards the end, the film never gets tangled. The plot is clear, well-explained, and makes perfect sense. At the same time, the theme of hypnosis is presented complex enough to fascinate and immerse the viewer, but also concisely enough to not bore someone who doesn't understand it and won’t make any sense to a layman. (01/18/2014)