Trance out and be entertained

While Danny Boyle was masterminding the London Olympic opening ceremony, he was also making this dynamic but dark psychological thriller. We are taken straight into an art heist at a London auction house where Simon (James McAvoy) plans an inside job to fund his gambling addiction. He works with tough guy Franck (Vincent Cassel) to take out the £27 million Goya's painting 'Witches in the air'. Despite an audacious action sequence, Franck finally realises that the painting has been cut out of the frame and chief suspect Simon has suffered a significant head injury where he has conveniently forgotten what he did with the painting! Franck is quite an enlightened gang leader who makes a very left field suggestion that hypnotherapy could help Simon to recover his lost memory. Simon chooses the stunning and stylish Harley St hypnotherapist, Dr Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson). And then the movie starts to get really interesting. Simon starts his psychodynamic search for "secrets that we keep from ourselves, called forgetting". Once she realises what is happening Dr Lamb throws professionalism aside and indulges in a little transference to demand her share of the reward. The audience then whizzes through some great psychedelic sequences of narrative backflips, psychological projections, and cartwheels with the dark side. I quickly decided to let go my grasp of reality and enjoyed the ride backwards and forwards in time through it all. I did not mind that 'character development' was compromised for interesting editing, music, colours and perspectives. It helped to enjoy the experience. I was on the edge of my seat all the way, and a little perplexed when my friend questioned me at the end about who was still alive and who really had the painting...