'Trance': Not Danny Boyle's Best Work
By
Kenneth Turan |
NPR
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or
Flash plugin.
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
Director Danny Boyle is best known for the Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire. His latest film is called Trance. Critic Kenneth Turan says the film's overall coldness means there isn't anybody you care to identify with or any outcome you want to see.
Transcript
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
The director Danny Boyle is best known for the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire." His latest film is called "Trance," but Los Angeles Times and MORNING EDITION film critic Kenneth Turan was not put under its spell.
KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: "Trance" begins with the auction of a painting by Goya.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TRANCE")
TURAN: And then, it's stolen. Auction house employee Simon, played by James McAvoy, is part of the robbery gang. But Simon gets hit in the head and when he awakes, he can't remember where he's stashed the masterpiece. If this frustrates Simon, it infuriates Franck, the impatient head of the robbery gang. Franck insists that Simon go to hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb, played by Rosario Dawson.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TRANCE")
TURAN: Elizabeth intuits that Simon is in some kind of trouble, and that the stolen Goya is involved. If she's going to help Simon recover his memory, she insists she should get a cut of the loot. We keep secrets from ourselves, she says enigmatically, and call it forgetting.
It's at this point that "Trance's" plot really gets started - though you end up wishing it hadn't, for that promising premise delivers nothing but frustration and dismay. We're shown both Simon's reality and what he imagines when he's in a trance, and it's impossible to tell them apart. And the film's overall coldness means that there isn't anybody you care to identify with, or any outcome you want to see.
Filmmaker Boyle finished this film after his work on the London Olympics feel-good Opening Ceremony. He told one interviewer that all the dark stuff he couldn't put into the Olympics, ended up here. That transference clearly made him feel better, but it's going to make audiences feel a whole lot worse.
GREENE: That's Kenneth Turan. He reviews movies for the Los Angeles Times, and for MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
View this story on npr.org
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today