I probably would never had watched this had it not been recommended to me by a close friend of mine; in hindsight, the film's obscurity strikes me as very odd in view of its topical subject matter and the star leads and director involved. In fact, I chose to watch it on the occasion of the latter's 47th birthday and was surprised to find how well made and sensitively handled it turned out to be (incredibly enough, even the renowned film critic Roger Ebert gave it the full four-star rating!) given Schwimmer's comedic background; incidentally, I never subscribed to the FRIENDS phenomenon but did occasionally catch snippets of the series on TV and the character of Ross was always the one I liked best. What could easily have fallen into the trap of hysterical melodrama is saved by credible and committed performances all round: following his daughter's ordeal, Clive Owen starts sinking ever deeper into the hitherto unknown world of Internet chat (cleverly displayed throughout as on screen intertitles) – reading the explicitly intimate chat logs; assuming the identity of girls in chat rooms to lure out lurking perverts; spying on a registered sex offender in his area, etc. Although Owen does get to unwisely and erroneously vent his increasing rage in public once, thankfully the film does not pander to commercial expectations by resorting to any implausible TAKEN-style retributions on his part. The cast is rounded up by Catherine Keener as the mother who, as she looks after her convalescing daughter, starts fearing for her husband's sanity; Viola Davis as the daughter's caring therapist; Jason Clarke is the resilient investigating cop who grows to resent Owen's initiatives; and Chris Henry Coffey as the enigmatic object of the daughter's affections. I have purposefully left relative newcomer Liana Liberato, who plays the beleaguered daughter, for last because her remarkable performance is at the centre of the film which renders even its most far-fetched aspects (she keeps defending her assailant for the longest time) believable. Aside from any artistic and technical merits it surely possesses, TRUST emerges a thought-provoking viewing experience as it explores the possibility of 'misunderstood' young people connecting to complete strangers via social networks while revealing the potential deceit and threat of impending danger posed by such websites and eventually the devastating effect that compromising (or compromised) photos going viral has on the victim and her peers. The pressure exerted by the latter on overprotected children (arguably fuelled by exceedingly sexy adverts on which Owen himself works in the film) and the dilemma facing parents in having to grapple on a daily basis with the simultaneous problems of their offspring (where one kid is bound to take precedence over the other) are also identified here as catalysts for trouble at best and a recipe for disaster at worst. Having said that, it is small wonder that the film bears that particular title since it is the basis of every successful relationship - be it filial, fraternal, amicable, professional or romantic – and, indeed, most of these are shattered or, at least, tested at one or more points in the film. In one final bold move, TRUST offers no happy resolutions for anyone and only reveals the true (and shocking) identity of the villain underneath the very end credits!
Review of Trust
