Trust (2010 film)

Trust

Theatrical release poster
Directed by David Schwimmer
Produced by Avi Lerner
David Schwimmer
Written by Andy Bellin
Robert Festinger
Story by David Schwimmer (uncredited)
Starring Clive Owen
Catherine Keener
Liana Liberato
Viola Davis
Music by Nathan Larson
Cinematography Andrzej Sekuła
Edited by Douglas Crise
Production
company
Nu Image
Dark Harbor Stories
Distributed by Millennium Films
Release dates
  • September 10, 2010 (TIFF)
  • April 1, 2011
Running time
 105 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $9.5 million[1]
Box office $595,439[2][3]

Trust is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Schwimmer and based on a screenplay by Andy Bellin and Robert Festinger. It stars Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, Jason Clarke, Viola Davis and Liana Liberato.

The film is about a teenage girl who becomes a victim of sexual abuse when she befriends a man on the Internet.

Plot

Fourteen-year-old Annie Cameron lives in suburban Chicago. She enjoys a healthy relationship with her family. On her birthday, her parents give her a laptop. When she meets Charlie in an online chat room, she establishes an instant connection with him. At first, Charlie states that he is sixteen years old. Over time, as the two bond by sending phone text messages and through instant messaging, he bumps his age up to eighteen, twenty, then twenty-five. Annie is taken aback at first, but then dismisses these concerns. Her parents are not aware of her infatuation, or the threat Charlie poses, and Annie even deceives them a bit, as she continues the online relationship, not wanting to end things with him under the belief that they are in love.

After two months of communicating electronically, Charlie invites Annie to meet him at the mall. While her parents are dropping off Annie's brother at college, Annie goes to the mall and awaits her first face-to-face meeting with Charlie. When he appears, she discovers he is significantly older than he presented himself to be, appearing to be in his late thirties or early forties. Annie is upset about him having lied about his age, but still spends time with him after he compliments and sweet-talks her and convinces her to ignore their age difference, even to the point of driving to a motel with him. Charlie then has her try on some model lingerie which he bought for her, she sits on the bed with him, Charlie begins to touch her inappropriately, despite her saying no and telling Charlie to wait, he pushes her down onto the bed, after which he rapes her. He secretly films what he does to Annie. Back at home, Annie is quiet and disengaged, Charlie has begun ignoring Annie.

At school, Brittany, Annie's best friend, deduces Annie had sex, as she had seen her and Charlie that day at the mall. Brittany is concerned about this and notifies the school administration. The police arrive and depart with Annie, drawing unwanted attention from fellow students at her high school. These actions initiate an FBI investigation. The FBI have Annie contact Charlie, in an attempt to identify him, but he figures out the ruse and breaks off contact with her before the FBI can trace his location. Annie's father, Will, starts his own obsessive investigation, taking up the services of a private investigation firm in New Jersey. He even steals a collection of his daughter's chat conversations with Charlie from the FBI. His relationship with his daughter and his wife, Lynn, begins to deteriorate, and he questions his work at an advertising firm, which uses provocative advertisements involving teenagers.

When Will tells his boss that his daughter was sexually assaulted, his boss is shocked but becomes dismissive when told that Annie knew the man and went willingly to the hotel, saying "it could have been a lot worse." Making Will uncomfortable around him. Annie, still believing Charlie loves her, is angry at Brittany for not keeping her relationship with Charlie secret, and she is livid at her parents for making her betray him and for forbidding her to contact him anymore. A few more days pass, and although Charlie has not been identified, DNA evidence proves he has behaved in the same manner with other young girls who reported it to the police. Annie is devastated because she thought she was special, the only girl in his life. After seeing pictures of the other girls, she feels betrayed, and after all the evidence that she wasn't the only one, she finally admits to herself, and to her hospital counselor, that she was raped.

The next day, Annie tries to move on with her life by participating in her school's volleyball game. There, Will sees a man in the crowd. Not only is he taking pictures of the girls in the game, but he also is one of the local registered sex offenders a private New Jersey investigation firm provided him pictures with. An irate Will interrupts the game in order to confront the man. He beats him to the floor, causing a scene. A girl in the game reveals the man to be her father. The assaulted man chooses not to press charges for fear that he will be outed to his family. Will apologizes to the man but Annie feels humiliated. At home, Annie confronts her father. Annie insists that she wants to move on with her life. She believes that Will does not fully appreciate her position as the victim.

Annie hears from Brittany about a website in which people are belittling the fact that she was raped and posting photo manipulations of her in pornographic poses. This pushes her over the edge. At home, she locks herself in the bathroom and attempts suicide by overdosing with pills, but is saved by her father. Brittany spends the night to keep her company, mending their broken friendship. Annie wakes up early the next day, and discovers her father sitting outside in the freezing cold weather. She approaches him, asking if he is all right. Will begins talking to her, reminiscing about the first time she ever got in the family pool, and how brave she was to do it. He tells her that she used to be confident, and nothing frightened her. He admired the way she loved the world and trusted the people in it and how now all that has changed. He weeps and pleads for forgiveness even though he believes he does not deserve it. Annie starts to cry and then embraces him.

As the credits roll, a home video reveals Charlie to be a high school physics teacher named Graham Weston, a married father with a young son.

Cast

Production

In an interview Schwimmer stated that he always wanted Annie to be played by a 14 year old as "there is a danger, if you cast someone who is 18, 19 or 20 to play 14 or 15, that very subtly, almost unconsciously, the audience is, 'Oh, this isn’t so bad.'” He based the film on 14 years of involvement with The Rape Foundation and 7 years of research. The scene where Annie is abused, was filmed as late as possible, to ensure a "really safe environment for Liana [Liberato]". In the seven years of development about 50 drafts of the script were written.[4]

Release

The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.[5]

Reception

Box office

Trust was a box office bomb. Out of its $9.5 million budget, it earned only $120,016 in North America and $475,423 internationally, for a worldwide gross of $595,439.[6][7]

Critical response

Trust received positive reviews from critics. The film has a "certified Fresh" score of 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 64 reviews with an average rating of 6.7 out of 10. The critical consensus states "Director David Schwimmer gets some gut-wrenching performances out of his actors but he still lacks the chops to fully ratchet up story tension."[8] the film also has a score of 60 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 18 critics indicating "mixed or average reviws.[9]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and stated in his review "The bravest thing about David Schwimmer’s "Trust" is that it doesn’t try to simplify. It tells its story of a 14-year-old girl and a predatory pedophile as a series of repercussions in which rape is only the first, and possibly not the worst, tragedy to strike its naive and vulnerable victim. It’s easy to imagine how this story could have been exploited and dumbed down. It works instead with intelligence and sympathy. "Trust" doesn’t offer soothing solutions. Annie will survive, but has been damaged perhaps more by the aftermath than by the rape itself. The movie is merciless in depicting the methods by which pedophile predators operate; Charlie is the embodiment of evil. But society is lacking in instinctive sympathy and tact for Annie, and society isn’t supposed to be evil. Catherine Keener does a warm, unobtrusive job of loving and comforting her daughter, but that’s not enough — not when her husband grows more concerned with vengeance than with healing. It is all too tortuous and complicated. Liana Liberato does such a poignant job of showing how, and why. She has three scenes in particular where her wounded feelings spill out in words of anguish, and they are so well-written and well-acted that they’re heartbreaking. David Schwimmer has made one of the year’s best films: Powerfully emotional, yes, but also very perceptive."[10]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1529572/
  2. ↑ Trust at Box Office Mojo
  3. ↑ "Trust (2011)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
  4. ↑ http://collider.com/david-schwimmer-interview-trust/
  5. ↑ Trust premieres at Toronto Film Festival, 2010
  6. ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=trust2011.htm
  7. ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=trust2011.htm
  8. ↑ "Trust – Rotten Tomatoes". Retrieved June 5, 2012.
  9. ↑ http://www.metacritic.com/movie/trust-1969
  10. ↑ "Trust". rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved April 4, 2011.

External links