Old Reviews: Trance

Danny Boyle's "Trance" is now playing in theaters. If you were thinking of spending a small fortune watching it, think again. I repeat: do NOT watch this movie. It is terrible. To be honest, I have never been a fan of Boyle. That's right, I don't even like "Slumdog Millionaire." I find his cinematic and writing style to be nauseatingly atrocious. However, after I saw "127 Hours" last summer, I thought I saw glimpses of why some revere him. I thought: Finally! Boyle found some content for which his crazy style fits nicely. So, when I heard "Trance" was coming to town, I decided to give it a shot. Whoops! This is the most thinly written, overly stylized (to absolutely no effect or enjoyment) neo-thriller I have ever seen. I didn't care at all about any of the characters. They are constructed as chess pieces moving a terrible plot forward. By far the worst and most memorable scene is when Rosario Dawson and James McAvoy's characters start to get hot and heavy. She stops and says, "I know what you want." Seconds later she's in the bathroom and we hear, what? OMG, say it isn't so. She's trimming or shaving her pubs for him. Yes, it's as maddeningly bad as it sounds. Another unfortunate aspect is that the whole movie is about a mystery (that, again, you don't care whether gets solved or not) and rather than leaving some room for interpretation, the entire mystery is revealed through a two-part soliloque from Dawson's character! Ugh. Thanks. I didn't want to think about this movie later anyway. Finally, the "romantic" sequences in this film are limited to rape or near-rape. Why? I have no idea. In short: Boyle tries to be Hitchcockian or Inceptiony and instead seemingly becomes the next M. Night, piling twists upon twists for the sake of having more twists. DON'T WATCH THIS! PLEASE DON'T! If I merely didn't like it, I wouldn't hound you so much! However, I HATED it!