hyped garbage

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Marketed with the promotional tagline "A slightly twisted comedy", that is not even the half of it as this Hal Hartley film focuses on an unconventional and entirely non-sexual romance that develops between a pregnant teenager and a social misfit twice her age. Both characters curiously defy the initial impressions that they give. As the teen, Adrienne Shelly seems bratty and brainless, wearing heavy makeup and disrespecting her parents, however, she gradually becomes more dowdy after her parents and her boyfriend both reject her upon learning about the pregnancy. As the social misfit, Martin Donovan (no, not the director of 'Apartment Zero'; another Martin Donovan) seems dangerous and prone to violent outbursts, but totally submissive when around his bathroom sanity obsessed father, Donovan also shows us a beating human heart beneath the anger. The film takes a bit too long to bring the two characters together (it is a full 26 minutes before their separate plots converge), but there is a lot to like in how they trust each other for different reasons; her for his sincerity and workplace integrity and him for her genuine warmth. Hartley unnecessarily complicates things with a stolen baby subplot that awkwardly pops up every now and again without offering any real perspective on how Shelley feels about her own baby to-be. In the scenes where Hartley just lets his characters interact with each other though, the film rarely skips a beat. Rebecca Nelson is also very good as the girl's mother who goes from resenting Donovan to trying to manipulate who he likes for her own advantage.

20+ years after I first saw it, this remains one of my favorite films of all time. Hal Hartley's second feature is built around the same deliciously weird sense of humor as his debut "The Unbelievable Truth" -- even if the balance here tilts a bit more toward (melo)drama than comedy. Hartley has been known to explain that he felt almost as though he put Adrienne Shelly's character on a pedestal in that first film, and wanted to explore the darker implications of that.Shelly herself (RIP) is even better this time around, and in place of Robert Burke, we now get Martin Donovan as one of the more intense, flawed, and ultimately lovable romantic leads you'll ever see on film. (I almost put quotes around "romantic," because this is not really a love story in the traditional "does the guy get the girl" sense. It's more interesting than that.) Donovan would go on to appear in five additional Hartley films, even playing Jesus Christ in the terrific featurette "The Book of Life," but none of those roles is more iconic than this one.Between the characters and the dialogue, Hartley and his cast created something here that is wonderfully unique, humorous, and poignant. Think _Sex, Lies and Videotape_, sort of: while the writer-directors have different voices, there's that same sense of careful economy, and of wondering whether these two messed-up people are ever going to get their acts together -- and cheering them on either way.

From the first sequence of Hal Hartley's Trust a viewer knows he's in for a dark, obscure ride. It opens with the shot of a young teen named Maria (Adrienne Shelly), smoking while being scolded by her parents on what a punk deviant she is after being kicked out of school. She informs them that she is pregnant and the consumption of shock and shame leads to her father's on-spot heart attack and death. This should give you an inkling on what kind of film you're in for.Maria winds up running away from home to inform her jock-boyfriend she is pregnant. He, of course, couldn't care less, as he wants to focus on sports with little distraction. Now, Maria is alone until she meets Matthew (Martin Donovan), a man whose life keeps intercepting the focus of the film up until this point. Matthew lives with his abusive father, who looks on to his son with a condescending eye. He regards him as an irrelevant failure with no ability to hold down a job. This puts Matthew in a suicidal position, barely holding on as a whole. When both of them meet, we truly see that misery loves company.The relationship Maria and Matthew have in the film is talky and quiet, with Matthew bringing detached realism into the life of Maria's, which is already dominated by teenage naivety. Hartley paints both characters as flawed people that do not magically become repaired by each other, but find a more stable sense of life and trust in their opposites. Shelley captures the reckless spirit of Maria well, and Donovan is superb at giving his sadsack character Matthew a face and a soul. Their chemistry is the driving force behind Trust's success.There's a constant use of bright, vibrant color in the film that really amplifies the overall look and tone of the picture. In the opening shot is where this can be viewed as being most prominent. As stated, Shelley remains in close-up and the colors of her makeup and lip gloss remain eye-popping and totally "in your face." The remainder of the movie can occasionally turn up as grim, with a gray palette, but often does Hartley gather up the brightest, most visually attractive colors to see on-screen.But where Trust really excels is in its dialog. Smooth, fluent, and often subversively philosophical in terms of direct contact, he establishes a relationship between two unlikely characters that we can see grow and build as time goes on. They expand from the one-dimensional caricatures we initially view them as to complete humans we can recognize and sympathize with.Trust is the second film from Hal Hartley, who has made a career out of making comedy-dramas with an emphasis on character and monologues. He establishes himself quaintly here, assuring his independent status, and carefully makes use of such neglected things as mood and tone to set a nice standard in this drama. It's the kind of feeling that I see many going for. We walk in unsure, but emerge with the mindset that we've seen a new filmmaking talent in the works. God, do I love that feeling.Starring: Adrienne Shelly and Martin Donovan. Directed by: Hal Hartley.

It was toss-up between what film will represent the early nineties style of independent films that I like – Trust could easily be replaced with Chasing Amy, Swingers, Metropolitan, Dazed and Confused or even Scream but I chose this Hal Hartley flick because I think it is the most profound in exploring the relationships we have with our partners, our family and the people in our immediate environment as well as having the most charming minimalist style to express those thoughts. A lot of the film is pretty much shot with talking heads but the execution works well because of the deadpan while nuance performances of a cast who remain very appealing and likable regardless of the dark twists and turns the story takes. Trust is probably the only Hal Hartley film you can guarantee finding at JB Hifi in Australia at any time and I definitely recommend it as an impulse purchase.