James McAvoy in Trance

 James McAvoy (/ˈmækəvɔɪ/ mak-ə-voi; born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's The Near Room and continued to make mostly television appearances until the early 2000s. His notable television work includes State of Play, Shameless, and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Besides screen acting, McAvoy has appeared on stage with Three Days of Rain in 2009, and in 2011 he did voice work for animated films including Gnomeo & Juliet and Arthur Christmas.

Starting in 2003, McAvoy began to build his film resume with Bollywood Queen. That film was followed with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), a commercial hit. His performance in Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland earned him not only critical praise, but several award nominations. 2007's critically acclaimed Atonement marked the breakthrough in McAvoy's career. It also earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination. Another big point in the actor's career was starring in Wanted (2008). Since then, he is notable for playing Charles Xavier in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, a role he will reprise in X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014.

 Trance is a 2013 British psychological thriller film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge. The film stars James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel. The world premiere of the film was held in London on 19 March 2013. Although the description of the plot below is linear, it is not the only method of interpreting the time line. Washington Post writer Michael O'Sullivan describes Boyle as "playing fast and loose with reality."

Plot

Simon, a fine art auctioneer, becomes involved in the theft of a painting from his own auction house. Simon's colleague Franck confronts him at gunpoint and takes the painting from him. When Franck tries to check the painting, Simon attacks him and receives a blow to the head that leaves him with amnesia. When Franck gets home, he discovers that the package only contains an empty frame. Franck and his offsiders then kidnap and torture Simon, but he has no memory of where he has hidden the painting, so Franck decides to hire a hypnotherapist to try and help him remember.

Franck makes Simon choose a hypnotist from a directory, and he chooses a woman named Elizabeth Lamb. Elizabeth and Franck start a relationship and she suggests that she try to seduce Simon to find the painting. She has sex with Simon and hypnotizes him. Simon has a dream where Franck and his associates plan to kill him, but he kills them instead. In the dream, he remembers where the painting is, calls Elizabeth and tells her.

Simon awakens, only to find Elizabeth is gone. When he calls her, she is on her way to get the painting, which Simon begs her not to. Franck and his associates intercept Elizabeth and force her to lead them to the painting. As she kisses Simon, Elizabeth passes three bullets to him. He attacks Franck with a fire

extinguisher and takes the other bullets and his gun. Elizabeth goes back into the apartment, where one of Franck's associates tries to rape her. Simon kills all three of them and takes Elizabeth to get the painting. She tells him to let Franck come with them. He then leads them to a parking garage where the painting is.

During the trip, Elizabeth mentions an abusive relationship she was in. She reveals that Simon was previously a client of hers. They started dating and he became obsessed with her and eventually abusive. She then used hypnosis to make him forget her and steal a painting for her. They arrive at the garage and take off to the warehouse in a car that Simon claims the painting is in.

On the day of the heist, Simon was attacked by Franck and awoke several hours later. He then received a text from Elizabeth, telling him to bring the painting to her. In reading it while he crossed the road, he was hit by a car. The female driver planned to take him to hospital, but Simon, with his memory partially regained, thinks the woman is Elizabeth and strangles her for making him forget her. He hides her corpse and the painting in the trunk and hides the car in a garage. They stop at a warehouse, and Elizabeth

finds the painting and the body in the car's trunk. Simon douses the car in gasoline with Franck handcuffed to it, sets it on fire and tells Elizabeth to run away with the painting. She runs away but promptly returns driving a truck which she drives into Simon, pinning him against the other car, and ultimately sending Simon, and the car Franck is trapped in, into the river.

Franck manages to escape, while it is implied that Simon drowns. The scene cuts to Franck swimming in his apartment while thinking of the event. He gets out of the pool and receives a package. He opens the package and finds an iPad that plays a video of Elizabeth talking about the painting, which is now hanging in her apartment. She gives him the option to forget the ordeal, and a button for an app called "Trance" appears as the video ends. Franck is shown doubting whether to press the button, and the screen cuts to black.