‘Trance’ filled with small, unlikeable characters

Sometimes you just don’t like a movie.

Trance is a new film from director Danny Boyle, best known for his films Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire. Trance is a well-made movie with a good setup, but its small and un-likeable characters ultimately made me dislike it.

Trance tells the story of Simon (James McAvoy), an art auctioneer. Simon participates in the heist of a painting worth millions of dollars with successful criminal Franck (Vincent Cassel) and his gang. During the heist, however, Simon gets hit on the head and forgets where he hid the painting.

Determined to recover it, Franck gets Simon to go to a hypnotherapist to cure his amnesia. But the hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawnson) wants in on the action, and soon things get complicated.

One of Boyle’s strengths as a director lies in how he pays attention to form. A hallmark of his movies for me is how well they are put together, and with Trance, I was not disappointed.

Using the starting off point of the typical heist movie, Trance makes some pretty unorthodox choices but never loses the viewer, despite things getting a little confusing towards the end.

The acting here is also pretty decent. Although no one is stellar, everyone does their job, and Cassel is actually fairly compelling. McAvoy also deserves credit for taking a role outside of type, and I hope he continues to expand his range.

Unfortunately, this well-structured, competently-acted film has one big misfortune, and that is to be populated by utterly unlikable characters.

The characters in Trance aren’t just bad people. That would be fine. Plenty of movies, including this year’s Stoker, focus on utterly terrible human beings. No, the big problem with the characters in Trance is that they’re not compelling.

With Stoker, even though its three leading characters were, in their own ways, disturbing and inhuman, they were compelling individuals whose conflicts I was made to care about.

In Trance, however, I found the leading characters to be small and petty, which made their crimes and transgressions just unpleasant.

Additionally, on the compelling side of things, I was never able to fully get engrossed in the whole hypnosis angle. Hypnosis is presented as a powerful and sophisticated tool, but the film was never really able to sell me on it or make me think it was very interesting.

All that being said, some of my dislike of this movie is a matter of personal taste, as I find it hard to enjoy movies where there’s no one to root for. It’s for this reason I dislike Being John Malkovich, and those with a different disposition might be better inclined towards Trance.

Before you see it, however, two words of caution are in order.

Firstly, Trance features extensive full frontal female nudity. This isn’t something I take issue with, but I know some people do.

More saliently, there are some pretty unsettling and violent scenes in this film. If you have a weak stomach, or are prone to nightmares, I would not recommend buying a ticket.

So, should you go see Trance? My recommendation would be no, but it’s not a strong one. The movie does have some good fundamentals, and if you’re able to stomach the characters, you’ll probably enjoy yourself.

Still, if you want to see it, I’d suggest taking a pass for now and waiting for it to come out on DVD.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on April 25, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Columns,Movie Reviews,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry