TRUST
A film review by Ahn@SUNCIS.YCC.YALE.EDU
Copyright 1993 Ahn@SUNCIS.YCC.YALE.EDU
Directed by Hal Hartley Starring Adrienne Shelley, Martin Donovan, Merrit Nelson, Jim MacKay
COMMENTS: I'm reviewing this because it's an easy rental to pass over. I was extremely skeptical when I picked it up, but it's one of my favorite movies now.
A very unique, surprisingly touching "dark-comedy." By the way, this won my award for Best Video Sleeper (ooooh's, aaahhh's from the Usenet audiences). The critic style here might seem a little stiff. That's probably because this was originally written for publication in my school newspaper. YEeeeeOW!
Trust is hard to come by these days, and in Hal Hartley's quirky movie, TRUST, it's even harder. In an all too familiar world, people zone out and watch television, talk about everything except what they actually want, and bicker about nothing. But you'll be hard-pressed not to enjoy this slickly directed, bam-out-of-a-low-budget movie.
TRUST begins rather strangely, if not difficultly, for the conservative viewer. In the opening scene, Maria Coughlin, a high school dropout played to perfection by a now personal fave actress, Adrienne Shelley, is arguing with her father over her recently announced pregnancy. After he calls her a slut, she slaps him and says, "So there!" and leaves. He then drops to the floor dead from a heart attack.
Even more noticeable is the dead-pan dialogue which the characters constantly engage in--a feature which seems to be a signature of Hartley's films (his other, THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH). Throughout the movie, conversations carry the weight of obligation and lack ornation. When the conversation becomes intense, it is out of a very genuine sense of anger or frustration. But it's effective: we get the impression that no one is connecting; each is their own island, and lost on it. Hartley also makes great use of silence.
Alienated in a world of utterly useless parents and television, Maria and Matthew Slaughter (Martin Donovan) independently cope with the angst of teenage life. Maria, heavy on makeup and big hair but light in the head, would like just one thing: to get married to her jock boyfriend.
Matthew, a hot-headed high school graduate, can't stabilize a career despite his talent as an electronics mechanic because he's too principled about manufacturing quality, of all things. He has other principles, in fact. He refuses to watch TV. His reason: "It causes cancer." His frank response to those who don't believe it: "Find out for yourself."
Much time is spent by Hartley to establish Maria's poor fortunes. After Maria's boyfriend chickens out and abandons her and her mother Jean (Merrit Nelson) bans her from the house, Maria suddenly finds herself alone and contemplating abortion.
The establishment of Maria's simplicity and eventual banishment from her family and her boyfriend seem too requisite, too contrived. Hartley does develop this when he explores the changes that occur to both Maria and Matthew after they meet, but the early Maria scenes are too pity-mongering, too much method to the weirdness in the off-kilter world Hartley creates. It is the only blaring weak spot in the film.
The movie starts to kick when Matthew finds Maria drunk in an abandoned home. She asks "What do you want?" and he responds, "I don't want anything." "Why not?" she inquires, and he says "Cause I don't think anything will help," pointing to the empty six-pack by her. Yes, the dialogue is sometimes a little too spontaneously deep for plausible conversation but you allow for it because it is consistently wry and funny.
The strength of the movie is the manner in which Matthew and Maria interact and learn to trust each other. Much of the charm of the movie also lies in the ways in which they cope with their wacked parents.
Matthew's father, wonderfully acted by Jim MacKay, slaps his son, rants about how worthless his son is (while all he does is watch television). His anal attitude towards the order and cleanliness of his house creates some hilarious film sequences in which Maria accidentally creates chaos in the kitchen. Never before has spilled milk and soup, burnt toast and ashes in a coffee cup taken on the magic of wicked delight.
Maria's mother is callous and cold, bordering on psychopathic. She is warned by Matthew, "A family is like a gun. You point it in the wrong direction; you might kill somebody." To which she snaps "Exactly." She's the most unorthodox of mothers. When Matthew and she argue over who Maria gets to live with, Matthew challenges her to a thumb wrestling match. She suggests, "Let's drink for it. Whoever's left standing wins." Yet despite all her bizarre idiosyncrasies, she seems genuine. Genuinely mad, maybe, but genuine.
Maria and Matthew begin to change in their relationship. Maria gets a job and becomes a bookworm while Matthew, willing to sacrifice his manufacturing quality principles, decides to look for a long term job. He even starts to watch TV, muttering, "Television allows us to make these daily sacrifices. It deadens the inner core of our being." Maria fears these changes and sacrifices and suggests that they leave town. "It's no use. Television is everywhere," Matthew says.
In echoes of THE GRADUATE, we are engrossed in the efforts of Maria and Matthew to somehow be beyond the muted world through marriage and each other. The ending of TRUST lacks the dramatic intensity of the wedding scene in THE GRADUATE but Hartley finds a more human and less fantastical conclusion to the lives of these two lost lovebirds.
The musical soundtrack is excellent (though poorly recorded) as well as the cinematographic style of Michael Spiller. The general theme and closing theme for the movie is a rather repetitious but harmonious keyboard ditty which seems to evoke a nobility in the futility of Maria's and Matthew's efforts. I have no idea what that means, but it was basically pretty moving. Things may or may not work out for these two trusting friends, but the fact that we like to tune in to their world makes their success or failure seem irrelevant.
-- Mos Eisley
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