TRUST

DISCOVERY:  
I sought this title out based upon the strengths of the other Hartley features I had enjoyed. I wasn't disappointed.

OPENING SCENE:
Maria Coughlin is fighting with her parents. She has been thrown out of high school again and does not care. This time she is pregnant.

PLOT:
Matthew is a motherless young man who lives with his violent, overbearing father. After quitting another job, Matt seeks to kill himself. He meets a homeless high school dropout who is blamed for the death of her father. She has no one to turn to, no place to stay. He takes her in that night, but by morning they are both kicked out by his father. She takes him in to the home she was thrown out of; together they find inner strength, not dependence.

The issues of abortion and subordinating your values to an employer are dealt with.

The plot is interwoven with subplots. One such subplot is when Maria, a teen pregnant with a baby she is uncertain she wants, meets an older woman who is miserable because she can not have the baby she wants. A baby is stolen. Was it the woman? Maria has to find out. But how?

Trust is about trust. Matthew learns to trust Maria. Maria learns to trust Matthew. Maria's mother is dishonest with others. Matthew's father is dishonest about his feelings to his son.

CHARACTER PROFILE:
Matthew is miserable. He hates his job because the company he works for is dishonest; they put defective parts into merchandise. It is his job to oversee this procedure. This is against his principles. Also, his father, Jim, is a bully—a neurotic with a bad temperament and a tendency toward violence. Jim is anal compulsive. He insists Matthew repeatedly clean an already spotless bathroom. Consequently Matthew's low self-esteem goes hand-in-hand with his father's bullying. No one believes in Matthew, so he does not believe in himself, until he meets Maria.

Matthew is self-destructive: smokes cigarettes, drinks heavily, and carries a live hand grenade. Matthew's grenade is his out, his door to escape.

He stands up to his dad for the first time, but he regresses when Maria tells him about the abortion.

During the film Maria grows. She realizes she was used by her football jock boyfriend who impregnated her.

An all-white cast of American characters.

FINALE:
Ends on a flat note, not an unhappy one, but not a mindlessly gleeful one either. Note the traffic light behind Maria in the final shot.

Shelly, Donovan, and Falco

Credits:
     105:00 min.    1990   USA    English
Directed by: Hal Hartley
Written by: Hal Hartley
       

Cast:
Adrienne Shelly	....	Maria Coughlin
Martin Donovan	....	Matthew Slaughter
Merritt Nelson	....	Jean Coughlin
John MacKay	....	Jim Slaughter
Edie Falco	....	Peg Coughlin
Gary Sauer	....	Anthony
Matt Malloy	....	Ed
Suzanne Costollos	....	Rachel
Jeff Howard	....	Robert
Karen Sillas	....	Nurse Paine
Tom Thon	....	Deli Pervert
M.C. Bailey	....	Bruce
Hannah Sullivan	....	Ruark Boss (as Patricia Sullivan)
Marko Hunt	....	John Coughlin
John St. James	....	Mr. Santiago
Kathryn Mederos	....	Factory Woman
William Sage	....	John Bill
Julie Sukman	....	Biker Mom
Robby Anderson	....	Joey Blech
Chris Cooke	....	Diner Guy

Original Music by: Philip Reed 
Additional Music by:The Great Outdoors

"Notable Quote"

PERIOD/SETTING:
Contemporary (late 1980's), Long Island, New York.

CINEMATIC SIMILARITIES:
See The Unbelievable Truth, also by Hartley.

Matthew is a reader, like Jude of Surviving Desire and Josh of The Unbelievable Truth, a reader of literature and philosophy. Like Bill, of Simple Men, who has understanding of things mechanical, Matthew has an understanding of things electronic. He uses tools to fix machines. He has insight into Maria's problems, but not his own.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  Numerical

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