JAMES MCAVOY: Movie Review: In Danny Boyle's Trance, McAvoy, Dawson and Twisted Memories Posted: 04/04/2013 6:28 pm CARYN JAMES (HUFF POST)

Playing a sophisticated London auctioneer, James McAvoy gazes into the camera with cool, nerveless clarity as his voiceover gives us the inside tricks of protecting and stealing a painting. This opening sequence of Danny Boyle's Trance is no more than exposition with a dash of red herring, and shouldn't work at all. Yet it does because McAvoy's voice is so captivating, already layered with deception and delusion, and because Boyle's visual creativity sweeps us along.

We zoom into the auction room; we're in a van with a gang of mercenaries hired by the auction house in case of trouble; a black and white flashback shows us the good old days when it was easy to steal a Rembrandt. Keep in mind how well McAvoy and Boyle save this opening; that will be extremely relevant to the ending of Trance, a film that looks like a heist movie wrapped in a memory puzzle, but is itself a kind of red herring.

For a good long time, it is also fun to watch, with Simon (McAvoy) in the middle of the action when robbers rush in to steal a Goya painting that has just sold for over 27 million pounds. As he has been trained to do, Simon grabs the painting to carry it to a safe place, but is thwacked on the head by the mastermind behind the crime, Franck (Vincent Cassel), and loses his memory of what he did with the Goya. Maybe a hypnotherapist, Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), can help?

Very quickly, we're led to wonder who was really involved in the theft, then who's double or triple-crossing whom. This is Boyle from an excellent vintage: his first feature, the delicious dark comedy Shallow Grave (1994) plays the same game of whom do you trust? Is there any honor or truth among thieves? In Trance, we also wonder about the weird coincidences and lapses in Simon's recovered memories. At first, the looping, Rococo plot unfolds with such ease that we barely have time to realize there's a French robber and an American hypnotist in London, as if they were the U.N. of thugs and therapists.

Flitting back and forth between present-day scenes and memories, Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (their many films together include Slumdog Millionaire) create a sleek, almost photorealist London, with flashbacks and memories so sharp and bright it's deliberately hard to know what's real and what's not.

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Danny Boyle’s Trance – First Images With James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel – UPDATED With More Posted on December 27, 2012 by Brendon Connelly (BLEEDING COOL)

Danny Boyle‘s next is a do-over of Joe Ahearne‘s 2001 TV movie Trance, a noirish twister about an art theft gone wrong.

In the film version, James McAvoy plays the inside man at the gallery who gets a good bash on the head and forgets who he is – and where he’s hidden the painting. A hypnotherapist is called in to try and unlock these memories and the story is quickly revealed to be a blend of the real, the remembered and the imagined.

There’s a piece on the film in the current issue of Empire magazine – the iPad version of which is going for just 69p right now, so check it out for yourself.

READ MORE: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/12/27/danny-boyles-trance-first-images-with-james-mcavoy-rosario-dawson-vincent-cassel/

Bloody Pics Of James McAvoy A Reminder That Danny Boyle's 'Trance' Is On The Way For 2013 NEWS BY KEVIN JAGERNAUTH SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 2:36 PM (INDIEWIRE)

You may have forgotten, given the brouhaha of Danny Boyle's celebrated London Olympics opening ceremony thingy, that he actually has a new movie on the way. "Trance" started filming last September, with the plan to start editing once the director's duties with the mega sporting event were over. Well, that time has arrived and today brings with it some new/old snaps from the movie. Yes, they landed last fall, but here they are as a reminder of what's in store.

Starring a promising cast including James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel, the film tells the story of an assistant at an auction house (McAvoy) who masterminds a heist and teams up with a gang of thieves led by Cassel, only to suffer a blow to the head and wake up with amnesia. As the only person who knew the location of the stolen painting, the assistant is then subjected to analysis from a hypnotist as the gang begin to suspect duplicity. Dawson will play a character who has a relationship with both men. According to Boyle's Facebook page, the movie is "coming in 2013" and we'd guess some kind of festival bow will be in the works.

READ MORE: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/bloody-pics-of-james-mcavoy-a-reminder-that-danny-boyles-trance-is-on-the-way-for-2013-20120925#

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY AT THE ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL

A Venice peach: Keira Knightley makes a grand entrance in a beautifully decorated dress at the Italian film festival

By Marcus Barnes

Last updated at 5:51 PM on 2nd September 2011



As a veteran of the red carpet Keira Knightley knows how to make an entrance.

So today was a walk in the park for the actress who arrived at a photocall at the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice for her new movie A Dangerous Method in an amazing patterned Mary Katrantzou dress.

Keira, 26, stepped off her boat and onto dry land, sashaying into the press area giving off a superlative air of cool in her black shades.

Dazzling: Keira Knightley sparkles in her Mary Katrantzou dress at a photocall for new movie A Dangerous Method at the Venice Film Festival

Oozing cool: The 26-year-old actress sashayed off her boat giving off a superlative air of chic

She completed her dazzling outfit with a pair of nude-coloured patent heels.

 

Set between 1904 and 1913, A Dangerous Method tackles the struggle between Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Fassbender) to establish their supremacy at the dawn of the era of psychoanalysis.

Star of the show: Keira was the main attraction at the photocall - here she gets a helping hand off her boat

Miss Knightley plays a troubled teenager named Sabina Spielrein who is at the centre of a clash between the two men.

She arrives at a Zurich hospital aged 18 to be treated by Jung.

In a distressing state, she's at human contact, twisting and contorting her body and face both in pain and terror.

Rave reviews: The actress really pushes herself in her new movie in which she plays a troubled young lady who is treated by psychoanalyst Carl Jung

Jung treats her though his 'talking method', getting her to relive her childhood, when her father used to beat her.

And, though he is married with children, Jung eventually admits to his repressed lust for Sabina and they embark on an affair.

Disturbingly, he indulges her in her fetish for being spanked.

Keira's performance in the film has already garnered rave reviews, her ability to convey the intensity of Sabina's condition in the movie's early scenes coming in for the most praise so far.

A Dangerous team: Keira with, from left, David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Sarah Gadon and Vincent Cassel in Venice

Derek Malcom at the Evening Standard said of her performance: 'Though playing against two performers of considerable weight, she more than holds her own from the moment she arrives on the scene, a hysterical patient, to the time when her love for Jung is finally reciprocated.'

Meanwhile Keira's co-star in new movie Anna Karenina, Olivia Williams, has described her as a 'phenomenal actress'.

The are set to work together in the upcoming adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel which has British director Joe Wright at the helm and stars Aaron Johnson and Jude Law.

Olivia has no doubt that Keira would be confident in taking on the challenging title role.

She said: 'In some films you're on your own but in a Joe Wright film you're not on your own, it's a genuinely collaborative event and I think that she's a phenomenal actress with or without this incredible ensemble behind her.'

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2033034/Venice-Film-Festival-2011-Keira-Knightley-A-Dangerous-Method-photocall.html#ixzz1WpkzBo51