• Rating:
• Genre: Comedy Drama
• Movie Type: Romantic Comedy, Domestic Comedy
• Themes: Eccentric Families, Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons
• Director: Hal Hartley
• Main Cast: Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Merritt Nelson, John A. MacKay, Edie Falco
• Release Year: 1990
• Country: US
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

The unlikely relationship between a pregnant high school student and a brooding electronics repairman lies at the center of this droll comedy from writer-director Hal Hartley. Intelligent but unconventional, Maria (Adrienne Shelly) has more to worry about than her pregnancy, as her expectant state drives away her boyfriend and triggers a fatal heart attack in her father. Meanwhile, Matthew (Martin Donovan) has his own problems: an abusive father, a heightened sense of morality that prevents him from taking semi-lucrative television repair jobs, and a suicidal streak that causes him to carry around a potentially deadly grenade. The meeting of these troubled minds at first promises to be beneficial for both, but sours as they are forced to interact with each other's dysfunctional families. As in all of Hartley's pictures, the narrative is filtered through an amusingly detached sensibility that some may consider an acquired taste. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Review

Hal Hartley's second excursion to absurd suburbia, Trust offers audiences the surreal farce and deadpan wit that Hartley made his calling cards. It also offers a surprisingly touching romance, marked by wry irony and universally resonant concerns, centering on trust as a substitute for love. Trust also works as a calm, unforced, deeply precise meditation on identity, and the ways in which it can be built, destroyed, and re-formed into something new and unanticipated. Clad in purple lipstick and a neon mini-skirt at the film's beginning, Maria (Adrienne Shelly) gradually transforms into a serious, intelligent young woman, with glasses and pulled-back hair. It's a believable transformation, thanks to Shelly's remarkable performance; one of the film's truest moments comes when Maria writes in her diary, "I am ashamed. I am ashamed of being young. I am ashamed of being stupid." Fortunately, in Martin Donovan's Matthew, Maria finds someone who understands this. Donovan makes no apologies for his character's difficult personality, making the misanthropic, emotionally stunted repairman's idiosyncrasies raggedly endearing. He and Shelly navigate the flat Formica landscape of Hartley's dialogue with great ease, their blunt, no-frills performances forming the heart of an ornery but immensely satisfying film. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Adrienne Shelly - Maria Coughlin
• Martin Donovan - Matthew Slaughter
• Merritt Nelson - Jean Coughlin
• John A. MacKay - Jim Slaughter
• Edie Falco - Peg Coughlin

Marko Hunt - John Coughlin; Chris Cooke - Diner Guy; Matt Malloy - Ed; Bill Sage - John Bill; Gary Sauer - Anthony; Nena Segal - Aunt Fay; Karen Sillas - Nurse Paine; Patricia Sullivan - Ruark Boss; Tom Thon - Deli Man; Pamela Stewart - Mrs. Blech; Jeff Howard - Robert

Credit

Claudia Brown - Costume Designer; Jerome Brownstein - Producer; Julie Fabian - Art Director; Nick Gomez - Editor; Hal Hartley - Director; Hal Hartley - Screenwriter; Sigrid Insull - Costume Designer; Daniel Ouellette - Production Designer; Phil Reed - Composer (Music Score); Michael Spiller - Cinematographer; Bruce Weiss - Producer; Ted Hope - Producer

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