Trust

THIS IS A LOVE-MELODRAMA WITH DARK humor about life in an American suburb. The precocious Maria has dropped out of high-school and becomes pregnant with her unsympathetic boyfriend, who abandons her. Her father has a heart-attack and dies when he finds out about it. Her mother disowns her. Maria leaves home and finds comfort with the misfit Andrew, a computer genius, carrying a hand-grenade in his pocket for all eventualities. They begin a relationship based on trust and mutual understanding, The film describes their struggle for social acceptance, and Maria's way from seductive teenage girl to a young woman with high ideals._
Comment:
PULL OUT LLOYD COLES LATEST RECORD Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe. Look carefully at the picture on the cover. It's there, on the right side of Cole where this film begins. If the director Hal Hartley, having finished his second feature film, Trust, ever heard about Lloyd Cole is unknown, but it's remarkable how similar the film and the record are. First, the photo is exactly the same as on the one on the Cole record cover. It's razor-sharp, with strong, brilliant colors; despite the predominant shades, yellow, grey and white. Second, the atmosphere in the film, a tar-black story about love, reminds you of Raymond Carver's novels, one of Lloyd Coles great sources of inspiration. The quote, ''Don't get weird on me babe'' is, for example, from Carver. Third - and this is most remarkable - the main character in Trust actually looks very much alike Lloyd Cole. Martin Donovan, who portrays the disillusioned TV-repair man, has the same bangs, the same chin, as Lloyd Cole. They also have the same taste in clothing, black suit and wrinkled white shirt, and both give at times an absentminded impression - their bodies are present but not their thoughts.
Trust is a strange film in many ways. Hal Hartley needs to make yet another couple of films until he can be called a great director, but the touch is right. The dialogue is crudely stylized, almost disturbingly so, in the beginning, but the short, cynical, lines, which the actors read rather than speak, are in the end a true asset. People might not talk like that in real life - but it's fantastic that they can do that on film. The scenography is also refreshingly modern. Set-designers often have a tendency to make the rooms and buildings look worn, probably with the idea that they'll look believably old, but everything is polished and shining new in Hartley's film: some scenes remind you of commercials for Mr. Clean. And its exactly the glossiness that helps make Trust an unusually believable film.
The female protagonist is acted by Adrienne Shelley, a name to remember. She could actually be an unknown younger sister to Rosanne Arquette. JAN GRADVALL

Medverkande
Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan: Producent
Bruce Weiss: Manus
Hal Hartley: Foto
Michael Spiller: Musik
Phil Reed: Talat språk
English