Speak of the devil. Not 24 hours ago, rumors swirled that Danny Boyle's upcoming enigmatic thriller/heist movie "Trance" had scored a March 2013 release date. While that hasn't been totally confirmed yet, USA Today has delivered some first-look photos from the film. "Trance" reunites Boyle with screenwriter John Hodge, who has written four of his films, including "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting," and it also marks a first for the filmmaker: the story centers on a female protagonist. Rosario Dawson is taking on that role.
While many assumed James McAvoy was the lead (French actor Vincent Cassel co-stars), USA Today says otherwise. And like yesterday's almost spoiler-ish synopsis reveals, the film is more than just a heist movie, as it evolves into something else. "It begins like that," Boyle said about its initial traditional heist movie predilections. "But it takes the idea of a stolen painting and develops into something sleeker and more psychological, with twists and turns."
"I wanted to do an updated noir, give it a contemporary spin in terms of emotion," Boyle told the newspaper. "Noir is usually cold. I wanted it to be more emotionally charged. It's the first time I put a woman at the heart of a movie." The three leads in "Trance" are an odd bunch. McAvoy plays a crooked art auctioneer, Cassel plays the thug he falls in cahoots with, and Rosario Dawson's character is introduced later, a hypnotherapist who has to pull the whereabouts of the stolen art from McAvoy's memory.
USA Today says one clue about the film's twists is the painting being sought after: Goya's Witches in the Air, "a chilling portrait of a floating trio of pointy-hatted male witches apparently feasting on a victim." It's also a very self-contained trio picture like "Shallow Grave," which had a triad at its core as well. "Their only point of reference is to each other. There are no outsiders," Boyle said.
"Trance" is looking likely for a March 2013 release in the U.K. Fox Searchlight, who released Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" and "127 Hours," is releasing the picture stateside, but no date has been announced yet. Updated: Pathe in the U.K has confirmed to The Playlist that the March 2013 release in the U.K. is correct. Three new photos from Empire via Bleeding Cool, below.
