Trust me

A father drops dead after arguing with his daughter, who's pregnant. In another house a grown man is still living at home with his father and can't clean the bathroom to suit him. Together these stories come together with vivid reality, almost too much so. Despite the feeling they seem to be getting nowhere and fast, its mature take on people's troubles and the way the two leads connect make for an intelligent and engrossing film. I don't know if I would really want to see it again, but the more the viewer thinks about it after wards, you realize just how much it makes an impression on you. The viewer is really invested in these people and that's a credit to the writers and makers of this film, which stars Adrienne Shelley and Martin Donovan and a young Edie Falco, before The Sopranos. If you want a real slice of life with an ending that's not really an ending, but just the beginning of another stage, watch this and learn about "Trust."

I first saw this film in 1990 while I was in college and I loved it. I watched it over and over on VHS. I told everyone that this was my favorite movie of all time and watched every Hal Hartley movie I could find. Last night I stumbled across Trust on Netflix Instant and I thought I'd check it out to see if this film that I was so passionate about when I was 20 years old held up over time or if the 40 year old me would find it silly or dated. To my surprise I was blown away all over again by how ridiculously great it is. The smart stylized dialog, the music, the starkness, the silences, the camera framing, all of the whacked out but fully human characters, Martin Donovan and Adrienne Shelly so young and beautiful. As the final, simple, beautiful, frame of the film disappeared and credits rolled I was left sitting on the couch in a state of shocked amazement at the effect this film still has on me. Hands down my favorite movie of all time!

I quite enjoyed this movie but it's difficult to explain what made it stand out to me. Despite being released in 1990 it feels like it has more 80s charm than some of those awful 90s teen movies. It has a tone to it more akin to Heathers.

There's not much in the way of plot but the actors really sell the roles without ever being reduced to caricatures. Adrienne Shelly was lovely and you buy her relationship with Martin Donovan. I doubt this movie could get made these days but him being in a relationship with a highschool girl is well-written. It is not overtly sexual and he is not made to be a predator preying on a naive teenager. If anything, she is more emotionally developed than him so the terms of their coupling seem to be dictated by her.

Lastly, this movie is impressively shot. Nicely composed shots, great use of close-ups for emotional scenes a few tracking shots that I thought were excellent.

All in all, it feels like a movie that could have been forgotten about but is well worth your while to check out.

Director Hal Hartley's second movie fascinated me when it was first released in 1990 and now I am still fascinated by it when I saw it this very night. Why do I feel this specific fascination? Because Hal Hartley's direction style is unique; this director uses his characters as chess pieces, who mentally (and sometimes physically) attack each other in a story about family life, in which love is synonym for hate.

It's a story about a mother and a father, who both hate their children, but who are fearful of losing their children anyway, because hate is all they have got...

However sad my above description may sound this movie is lighthearted and gentle and comical in a subtle way. And it is quite touching. Highly recommended for the art house movie fans of intelligent, subtle, quirky dramatic comedies.

I caught this movie on the television network Bravo. I didn't see the very beginning but found myself glued to the machinations of the Matthew Slaughter character. I felt the performance of Martin Donavan was wonderful and I enjoyed the odd way the characters spoke with one another. The lines were rapid-fire, almost like "Moonlighting", but with a different nuance which I can't quite put my finger on. The movie was funny, but the best word for it is "interesting". It truly was a movie unlike any other I had seen, with a Coen Brothers sense of humor. I wish I knew more people who had seen it, because it is a movie that warrants discussion afterward.