Trance
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Joe Ahearne, John Hodge
Cast: James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson, Danny Sapani, Matt Cross, Wahab Sheikh, Tuppence Middleton
Seen on: 16./17.1.2026

Content Note: intimate partner violence, sexism, misogyny, fatmisia (briefly)

Plot:
Simon (James McAvoy) is an art auctioneer. When the auction is robbed by Franck (Vincent Cassel), Simon tries to intervene and is hit over the head, losing his memories of the event. Which is too bad because Franck comes to find him: it appears that Simon’s memories have more to hide than he thinks. On Franck’s insistence, Simon sees a hypnotherapist to retrieve those memories. But hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) realizes that something is up and offers more help than simply therapy.

Trance is a stylish thriller with a good cast that tries too hard to be surprising and twisty and ends up straight in misogyny territory. It is also one of the worst portrayals of hypnotherapy I have ever seen, but that was to be expected.

Look, I did not expect the film to be accurate regarding what hypnotherapy is or does. But they really go farther in stretching the limits of hypnosis than I ever would have thought. It stretched my willingness to suspend disbelief to the breaking point, especially since what it relies on is „only the therapists‘ personal moral code keeps them from bending the world to their will“, and dude, really? I have a very positive view of humanity in general, but one has to be realistic, too.

Be that as it may, this version of hypnotherapy certainly provides us with the perfect excuse to keep throwing twists and red herrings and some more twists at the story. Some of those even stick, others don’t work, and some simply left me confused as the film can’t always retain clarity about what is happening when and what we are seeing.

Using hypnotherapy in that way also creates the problem that we are ultimately stuck with the deeply sexist narrative of the manipulative woman who bends men to her will, and has no qualms about using sex to do so, either. The shitty cherry on top of that misogynist clusterfuck is that the film has only one notable female character and features a fetishizing shot of full frontal nudity of her (and of her only, we barely see a male buttcheek) that comes with the most ridiculous „explanation“ for it I have ever heard. It is an excuse to ogle Rosario Dawson, and I would have almost preferred it if the film had not pretended otherwise. (Even better yet, hadn’t featured it at all.)

There are good moments in the film. Genuinely funny ones, very pretty ones and the chemistry between the three leads is on point. Cassel and Dawson together could burn down a mid-sized forest. But any deeper point gets lost in the noise created by plottwists and doing too much. And that’s a pity.

Summarizing: among the weaker Boyle movies.