Trance is a 2013 psychological thriller film directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge from a story by Ahearne. It stars James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson. The world premiere of the film was held in London on 19 March 2013.
Plot
During a heist on an auction house, thieves take a package which presumably contains a valuable painting. Auctioneer Simon Newton attacks their leader Franck, who hits Simon on the head, knocking him unconscious. Later, Franck discovers that the package contains only an empty frame. Simon, the heist's "inside man", double-crossed him. Looking for the painting, the thieves kidnap and torture Simon. However, the blow to the head left him with a case of amnesia: he cannot recall where he hid the painting. They need a hypnotherapist to help him remember.
Simon chooses Elizabeth Lamb from a list. Using a fake name, he tells her he is after some lost keys, hoping she leads him to the painting instead. She quickly sees through Simon's façade, forcing the thieves to negotiate with her.
In exchange for a cut of the proceeds from the sale of the painting, Elizabeth keeps hypnotizing Simon. Between sessions, he reveals his gambling addiction got him involved with Franck. Franck offered to settle his debts in exchange for help stealing the painting.
In one session, Simon remembers that, during the heist, he cut the painting from the frame and hid it in his suit. When Franck was about to notice this, Simon attacked him. Shortly after the blow to his head, he awoke alone. While leaving the auction house, Simon was distracted by a text message and got hit by a red car. He erroneously remembers the driver as having been Elizabeth.
After Simon is put in another hypnotic state, the thieves discover he is obsessed with her. She says this is due to transference. If Elizabeth seduces Simon, she may get him to say where the painting is.
The two go on a date, where he abruptly cools toward her and goes home. She tells Franck this happened because Simon is jealous of him. Franck and Elizabeth then have sex. One of the thieves sees this and tells Simon, who later decides to confront Elizabeth. Managing to trigger his lust and calm his jealousy, she hypnotizes him. By leading Simon through an imagined narrative in which Franck wants to kill him, Elizabeth learns the painting's location. However, she is caught by the thieves shortly after. Simon and Franck are sent to get the painting, while the other thieves stay to rape Elizabeth. When Franck is distracted by her screams, Simon overpowers him and kills the other thieves.
Elizabeth convinces Simon to spare Franck and bring him with them to get the painting. At a parking garage, the trio collect a red car and drive it to a warehouse. During the trip, Elizabeth reveals that Simon had previously come to her for help with his gambling addiction. They started an affair, but he became obsessive, jealous, and, eventually, abusive. Fearing for her life, she used hypnosis to make him forget her. When Franck hit Simon on the head, it brought back a vague sense of his memories of Elizabeth. In his confused state, he imagined the female driver who hit him as Elizabeth and strangled the woman to death. Her body is in the car's trunk.
At the warehouse, Simon gives Elizabeth the painting and then douses the car in fuel, with Franck still zip-tied inside it. To save Franck, Elizabeth drives a truck into Simon. Both Simon and the car are pushed through a wall and into a river. Franck escapes, while Simon dies. Elizabeth later disappears.
Sometime later, Franck receives an iPad containing a video of Elizabeth, who now has the painting. She reveals that, when she hypnotized Simon to make him forget her, she also told him to steal a painting for her as payback for his abuse. That is why Simon betrayed Franck. The text Simon received before being hit by the car was from Elizabeth and instructed him to deliver the painting to her. She tells Franck that he can try to find her and recover the painting, or he can open "Trance", an app on the iPad with a recording of her voice that will erase her and the whole ordeal from his memory–the choice to remember or forget is his.