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Saw this last night. It was absolutely outstanding.
In a nutshell, James McAvoy works at an art dealership. Vincent Cassel and his goons bust in to steal some paintings. James McAvoy hides the $25million painting they are after, but during the robbery gets a nasty knock on the head. He gets amnesia, can't remember where he hid the painting, and so a hypnotherapist, Rosario Dawson, is brought in to try and retrieve the memory. But things are not as they seem...
Now, I really can't go into the film in much more depth other than that, without spoiling it.
But the film is everything that we have come to expect of Danny Boyle in recent years: superb direction, fast paced, brilliant performances (Vincent Cassel is excellent in this, as always), and a very naked Rosario Dawson... OK, so we haven't come to expect that yet, but I'm hoping Danny Boyle continues that trend in his future films
Don't think this is out Stateside yet, but I recommend checking it out when it is released. (Just checked, it comes out on the 5th of April for you guys).
I haven't actually seen Vanilla Sky since it was in the cinema.
The similarities between the two didn't strike me when I watched Trance, but now that you mention it, it is possible to draw some similarities between the reality warp/ lucid dream aspect of both.
Read a review on this today - it didn't come out too well - looks a little bit like DB's trying to be too clever and too confusing. I like him, but he can be hit and miss. The writer wrote Trainspotting and a least one or two of DB's other films, so it should be good in theory ...
I was actually surprised, as I didn't think it was anywhere near as pretentiously 'clever' as Inception. I'm guessing that the two films may have been received differently due to the directors involved.
And as a psychologist, I'm probably the ideal target audience for these types of films
The reviewer I read from, I normally like, he's pretty trust-worthy, so it was a suprise to see it getting a bit of a hit. The main problem seemed to be figuring out which bit was real and which weren't, and that just seemed to confuse him too much in the end. Hope you don't do stuff like that to your patients ...
I did indeed! I took in a double, including Maniac.
Still pondering my thoughts on this. But to go on a tangent... There has been a lot of talk recently of how Welcome to the Punch was the British film that brought Hollywood production values to the beautiful London. And whilst they acheived some aesthetic joys, the film, IMO, was a complete mess. Trance, however, really did a wonderful job of bringing the aforementioned 'Hollywoodness'. Boyle is an excellent director. Enjoyed all of his films. The link, of course, to my tangent being McAvoy. McAvoy (who has never been one of my favourites) stunk up the screen in Welcome to the Punch, but here he was pretty damned good. Much better fit for him.
SPOILERS
This was sitting so well with me until the last 20 minutes or so where it all seemed to collapse in on itself. To touch on the Inception comparisons, that's the difference between an excellent director like Boyle, and a truly special one like Nolan. Boyle allows this film to become submerged in a confusion that doesn't feel controlled, as opposed to Nolan who you always know has a steady hand on the tiller. My thinking behind this rests on the reveal of McAvoy as the killer and manipulated. It just felt so awkwardly revealed to us. I don't mind having the protag being switched over to an antag of sorts in the final furlong, but when it's clouded in fuzz, I'm just left with a headache. All that said, this is a good film. It was enjoyable and it's worth a second view. But my biggest takeaway for any up and coming British filmmakers, is that they should look to Boyle's high production values of London over the very lightweight brashness of Creevy's Welcome to the Punch.
Regards my earlier Vanilla Sky thoughts... there's defintely some thematic similarities going on with the repressed memories and I refuse to believe that Vanilla Sky wasn't in Boyle's mind when making this. Ultimately, though, I felt this film lacked the raw power of Vanilla Sky, which showed that giving the audience an explanation can indeed work.
Saw this earlier this afternoon. Easily the worst film I've seen in 2013 thus far. That's definitely a good thing - I think I've dodged some serious bullets throughout the past three months - but it doesn't change the fact that the film is a total clusterfuck. I think Boyle, the writers, or whoever tried to cram way too many ideas into the narrative then throw them all at you one after another for the duration of the film. Boyle's style is schizophrenic enough as it is so... bad idea.
I didn't hate the film. On the contrary, there was much I liked about it. The direction was superb as always, the performances were all top notch, and honestly, I thought some of the ideas were actually pretty cool. For the first half hour or so, I was totally on board. Then it started to get goofy, what with Dawson's character hypnotizing the bad guys and what not, then the plot just said fuck it. The last half hour of so was especially difficult to get through. I was already confused by then and things just kept getting faster and more bombastic. By the time they get to the warehouse and there was fire all over the place, I had checked out.
The most aggravating thing about Trance is that not only could it have stuck to the initial premise and come out a great film, there were actually several threads in the plot that individually could've made for great films. That's saying a lot.
I think in the end, this was an extremely ambitious undertaking from a more than capable and accomplished filmmaker but as the old saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Where I thought the film fell down was at it's ending. I do think it was superbly Directed. Boyle is a very gifted director.
I found the comparison you made ANDREW between Boyle and Nolan to be interesting. I think personally that Boyle is the better director and Nolan is obviously the better writer. If you compare the direction in Boyle's films such as Trainspotting, Sunshine, Slumdog Millianaire and 28 days Later you have a diverse range of truly magically directed films. You don't quite have that with Nolan. The writing and directing in his films, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, The Dark knight are all great but not as diverse as Boyle.
That's why, like I said, I feel Boyle is the better Director but lacks Nolan's creative mind and writing.
This film has the worst third act in history, no, not even stretching that, the last 25 minutes were absolutely terrible. Such a huge cluster fuck, I'm actually so mad right now. What a terrible terrible choice. SPOILERS - I mean why the hell would you change the protag to an antag right at the end of the film, especially when Elizabeth was a bitch for half the film. Why would I care if this bitch, who everybody in the film already hated, was the 'good guy' all along? I mean if the characters hate her, why would I like her? In fact, what really pisses me off is that the whole thing was her revenge on him, but that's such a poor plot choice since we want Mcavoy to get the painting, and then suddenly, when the focus shifts away from the painting and to some random subplot, the audience is left scratching their heads. It makes no sense.
God almighty, I can't even guess why someone would do this. It's a shame too because everything before it was astounding, the acting was top-notch, the directing was stellar, I was engrossed. But that ending was such a let down... Wow... Like James, I'm contemplating whether this was one of the worst films I've watched this year.
Regarding Nolan/Boyle, it's always good to keep in mind that Nolan (mostly) writes his own films - and he's an excellent writer.