Opening Today: Trance, A Danny Boyle film.
A cinematic hypnotic spell. An enchantment! The notion of the hypnotic 
abounds. So evocative and alluring is a whiff of the stuff, that cosmetic company Lancôme named a perfume Hypnôse, to entrance potential customers. Now the celebrated British Director Danny Boyle and the creator of the wonderously ‘hypnotic’ Olympic Games opening ceremony has made a movie entitled Trance.
Be curious. I am.
I am naturally hypnotised… mesmerised… and most certainly interested as to what the content is going to be. I am a hypnotherapist so I am very, very curious to see how someone of my ilk is portrayed. I am wondering whether the actress Rosario Dawson plays a professional Hypnotherapist, or is simply on screen to weave a hypnotic spell ― a phrase that is in common currency when describing performances by artists whose talents evoke awe and wonder in the viewer. And to be sure off-screen Rosario Dawson’s passions and pursuits do evoke awe and wonder in me. She is a campaigner and an activist in Africa, driven by her contribution as much off screen as on.
The Plot and Hypnosis
Let me share a cobbled version of the plot. James McAvoy plays Simon, an auctioneer who has fallen in with a criminal gang who are planning to steal a near-priceless Goya. When a chance concussion induces amnesia, Simon forgets where he hid the painting. The ruthless gang leader, played by Vincent Cassel, is seriously angry. A hypnotherapist is hired to jog Simon’s memory ― exceedingly fast. Fair enough. Hypnotists and hypnotherapists are ‘quietly’ employed in crime investigations in the ‘real’ world ― more often than you may imagine. Remembering vehicle number plates is a common enough theme.
Glamorous Hypnotherapist
Did I miss out the adjective glamorous. Yes I did. The actress is rather beautiful and yes, the hypnotherapist is rather glamorously portrayed. So far so good. However, is she professionally portrayed? I’ll get to find that out soon. But I do wonder.
The Trailer as a Peep Show
I just can’t wait and when I step online to book tickets at the Greenwich Picture House in London I am served up the trailer and the option of having a sneak peek! Trance is an action-packed, gritty, violent thriller, as the trailer reveals. “Have you ever been hypnotised?” says the hypnotherapist in such a way as to suggest she is asking an entirely different question. Jack Nicholson would probably come back with the quip, “Wrong verb.”
So does the session look like a real Hypnotherapy session?
Remember this is a movie. She, the hypnotherapist appears to be sitting quite a distance away, a face set with earnest intensity. He, the client is sitting upright in a less than comfortable chair. Mine is a deliciously relaxing comfy chair that truly does hold you in suspension!
Professionalism goes out of the window
OMG. She becomes the love interest, and gets struck off the professional register. Well not in the movie, but she could in real professional life. The professional code of conduct does not allow relationships with clients during the therapeutic process. Confused. As a client you would be. Boundaries are firm and clear.
Thus far what does a professional hypnotherapist think?
So far as the trailer goes, Trance seems to blur the boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion. And most certainly professional practice. These are cinematically manipulated by script and screen. Well… More later but this far I am seriously concerned that Trance is a movie that does not represent therapeutic hypnosis and therapy
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