First Look And Synopsis: Danny Boyle's 'Trance', Starring Rosario Dawson, James McAvoy, And Vincent Cassel

It's been a couple of years since we've seen a Danny Boyle movie (his last was 2010's 127 Hours), but the Brit filmmaker's been very busy in the meantime. He shot the art-heist thriller Trance in late 2011, took a break to direct the London Olympics opening ceremony in 2012, and is now back at work putting the finishing touches on Trance.

James McAvoy stars as an art auctioneer who helps a gang of thieves (led by Vincent Cassel's Franck) steal a Goya masterpiece. After a blow to the head gives him amnesia, Franck hires a therapist (Rosario Dawson) to help jog his memory. The first stills and a new synopsis have just hit the web, and you can check them out after the jump.

And here's the latest detailed plot synopsis from The Film Stage:

TRANCE, directed by Oscar®-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) and co-written by Oscar®-nominated long term collaborator John Hodge (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting) is a seductive and enigmatic thriller starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson.

Fine art auctioneer Simon (McAvoy), in league with a gang led by underworld boss Franck (Cassel), plots the audacious theft of a masterpiece by Goya from a major public auction. When Simon double-crosses the gang during the robbery, Franck retaliates violently and knocks him unconscious.

In the aftermath of the heist, Simon sticks stubbornly – and perhaps shrewdly – to his claim that the violent trauma has left him with no memory of where he stashed the artwork.

Unable to coerce the painting's location from Simon, Franck and his associates reluctantly join forces with a charismatic hypnotherapist (Dawson) in a bid to get him to talk. But as they journey deeper into Simon's jumbled psyche the boundaries between reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur and the stakes rise faster and far more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated.

Interestingly, although the plot descriptions suggest McAvoy's Simon is the protagonist, USA Today reports that in fact, Dawson's character is at the center of the film. "It's the first time I put a woman at the heart of a movie," Boyle told the newspaper.

That move allowed him to present a fresh take on a classic genre. "I wanted to do an updated noir, give it a contemporary spin in terms of emotion," he said. "Noir is usually cold. I wanted it to be more emotionally charged."

Trance opens March 27 in the U.K. The American release date has not yet been revealed.