Film Scene: Artful dodge

This intense thriller from the director of Trainspotting will keep you guessing

Trance ***

Allow me to give you a heads up on this film. It has a devilishly clever plot, with guns, bodies and money falling - and is constantly changing - like chips of glass in a kaleidoscope. With each twist, you need to pay careful attention because the plot swerves, reverses unexpectedly and ties knots in the storyline.

It was made by British director Danny Boyle, who has a unique, eccentric style. His films, such as Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting and Shallow Grave, tell complex tales of weakness and greed, and this complex thriller is one of his best.

It centres on a Goya painting, a rare find that has wealthy art collectors competing to buy it. Simon (James McAvoy) is the auctioneer who will sell it.

A gang of thieves, led by Franck (Vincent Cassel), has planned an intricate heist to steal the painting. In the ensuing chaos, Simon takes the risk of stealing it for himself. The gang beat Simon up and a vicious blow to his head results in amnesia - he has no memory of where he hid the painting.

By this time the police have moved in and everyone is on the run. Simon is fighting for his life and Franck is on the brink of being caught by the cops.

Franck takes Simon to Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), a hypnotherapist, in the hope that she can help Simon remember where he hid the painting. When Elizabeth realises how valuable the work is, she gets larcenous ideas of her own. She is not going to tell the police about Simon for fear of being drawn into the crime, but she also realises the painting can make her wealthy beyond words.

As Warren Buffet said: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." Elizabeth starts using hypnosis on Simon and implants false ideas into his mind.

Boyle follows these three disparate characters in a race to find the painting. Simon, Franck and Elizabeth deceive each other in one of those "Who is doing what to whom?" situations.

Some viewers will be intrigued, but others will think it is pretentious clap-trap. I enjoyed the complexity of this thriller even though Boyle took a bold risk with his deliberate misdirection of the plot. There are lies within lies and it is only when Simon starts remembering flashes of what happened that he regains his memory. But are they "real" memories? Did the expedient hypnotist replace the truth with lies in his brain?

Who is the woman who died in the car? Does Franck find the painting? Those are the questions that are still in your head as the film ends and, for some people, that might feel like a cop-out.

I would not call Trance a great movie but it held my attention from start to finish. And as I was driving home, I was still trying to work out what it was about.

Greedy people, those who lie and deceive in order to enrich themselves, are more entertaining on the screen than they are in the real world - so take a risk and watch the elusive Trance just to see them.

Close Up: Trishna

BRITISH director Michael Winterbottom successfully adapted Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure in 1996. Now, 17 years later, he's filming Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but has set the film in 1950s India. He has cast Frieda Pinto, who starred in Slumdog Millionaire, and has reworked Tess, Hardy's central character, changing her name to Trishna.

Pinto spoke about translating Hardy's Victorian classic into an Indian drama on bibimagazine.com: "[Trishna] is trapped in her community's traditions and rules. In the rest of the world, Women's Lib was evolving but in India , the only role for Trishna was to be a traditional wife and mother.

Her family chose Jay (Riz Ahmed) as her husband - but she needs something more. It's the story of a strong, courageous woman who confronted the repression of the time."

• Trishna will be released on May 10