Directed By Carlson Young

Starring – Sophie Turner, Rhys Coiro, Billy Campbell

The Plot – A Hollywood actress (Turner) hides in a remote cabin after a scandal, only to find herself betrayed and fighting for survival against someone she once trusted.

Rated R for violence, adult language, some sexuality and drug content.

Trust | Official Trailer | Paramount Movies

POSITIVES

Despite audaciously baffling execution to the constant hinderances of progression to the movie, the script from Gigi Levangie does feature enough compelling elements to field as many as three different movies, which at least initially makes “Trust” feel like it’s much more than just another typical captivity thriller. With themes pertaining to everything from the invasiveness of celebrity culture, to work site toxicity, to even the vulnerabilities associated with adolescent acting, the film does have plenty of alluring angles to instill a feeling of uneasiness to the world that Young is cautiously taking us through, and while it eventually comes to evade all of these cunningly psychological angles, it proves at least some attempt to evade A conventional materializing, a fact that, for better or worse, the rest of the movie lives and dies by. In addition to the script occasionally inspiring intrigue, the film’s single stage setting of this luxuriously isolated mansion does paint a false narrative towards expectations that are realized in the best and worst aspects of the house, not only with upper class elegance in the set designs breeding an authentic essence of celebrity escapism, but also in the tightly condensed claustrophobia of this coldly chilling panic room of sorts that Turner’s character finds herself constantly attempting to fight out of. If money was spent on any single aspect of the movie’s production, it was definitely this established setting that intoxicatingly gives her a reason to be there, far from the chaos of a news-breaking scandal, with this beautiful household being put through the proverbial ringer in everything from buckets of bloodshed, to busted pipes flourishing rivers of water to its stably sturdy foundation. Lastly, the film’s performances do leave more to be desired in a surprisingly stacked ensemble, but Sophie Turner is the lone breadwinner for the movie, commanding a rich duality psychologically and emotionally towards the character of Lauren that vividly bares the baggage of a lifetime within such a toxic industry for woman and children alike. While Turner’s shaky and frightened demeanor during those vulnerable moments effortlessly appraise a palpable empathy for the character that takes her and audience interests miles throughout an artistically compromising engagement, it’s truly her stoicism during uplifting moments of resourcefulness and resiliency that articulates a grittiness for the character, and with constant flashbacks depicting Lauren’s bouts with industry depression and suppressed traumas, Turner tenderly evokes the trepidation of her endless memories that play on loop to both her regrets and remorsefulness, establishing her not only as the movie’s heartbeat, but also its single greatest appeal towards attaining an appreciative audience.

NEGATIVES

A popular phrase amongst uninspiring movies anymore is that they feel A.I-made, and while I myself have been guilty of embellishing in this certification, it wasn’t until “Trust” that I truly have proof of such artificialities, as the laziness and lack of logic of the pen that went into writing this movie requires audiences to evade any preconceived intelligence pertaining to what any of them would do to easily escape such a captive situation. While I’m typically able to suppress disbelief in a movie, if I’m thoroughly entertained, I can say the logic leaps here are too much to overcome, such as a room constantly filling with building water against a practical door that features not only a gaping gap at the bottom of it, but also a punched through hole in the doorhandle, compliments of Lauren breaking it while attempting to get out, early on. This in itself is another ridiculous leap, as a doorhandle will still work if you simply put it back in (I even have a broken doorhandle in my house), but the movie requires its audience to be bumbling idiots to follow along faithfully with it, fighting tooth and nail to make Lauren a helpless heroine, even with Turner’s own instincts compromising the intention. On top of this, the movie is a psychological thriller that has minimal psychology, and absolutely no thrills whatsoever, courtesy of a screenplay that stacks the subplots and characters, even as late as the last half hour in the movie. One of the most obvious intentions of a captive thriller is to isolate the character and the audience far from the advantages of helping parties, however the script is constantly focusing on outsider arcs that add little to nothing of meaningful momentum to the movie’s favor, but also minimizes the further exploits of Lauren, the longer the film drifts into its second half, making it feel like Turner was only available for a couple of days of shooting, before the production had to work clumsily around her absence. As for the aforementioned lack of thrills, there’s many reasons why this film constantly fails at attaining suspense or even momentary tension to sequences that should easily be surrounded in them, but I have it narrowed to a couple, with those being braindead morons of antagonists, who are one step below the Wet Bandits of “Home Alone”, as well as the technique behind Young’s direction, which is never able to effortlessly immerse audiences into the plight of the situation. On the former, the film would be much better suited with no antagonists at all, or even ones who are left masked, as these trio of idiots can’t find their way out of a paper bag, let alone keep the situation from getting out of hand, and though the fear of submerging water should naturally result in an uneasiness in the helpless design of the character, the distractions of the techno-heavy score, the relaxed editing practices and condensed clarity of angles within the movie’s cinematography make it difficult to simultaneously envelope urgency and vulnerability to Lauren’s plight, leaving far too much accessibility in the element of escapism that always made it feel like she would find her way out, one way or another. The film is also plagued by these waves of constant tonal clashes that make it difficult to remain invested towards a certified thriller, particularly in the abrupt arrival of Katey Segal’s character during the movie’s second half, which practically turns this into a screwball comedy with some of the strangest acting direction that I’ve seen against a movie’s basis in quite sometime. Being a huge fan of Katey, and never seeing her underwhelm in any project, I refuse to blame her for the way she was steered through these horrendously hokey deliveries that grew all the more distracting the further we went with them, and considering her character strangely steals more of the movie’s focus from Turner throughout its second half, it can’t be simply shrugged off for how much damage she did to a film constantly attempting to bottle uneasiness to its audience, making the two halves of this movie feel like they were helmed by two completely different directors, with one of them driven by groan-churning comedy of the laziest variety that had me checking my watch like a track and field coach. Segal is hardly alone in the inferior appeal of her work, as Billy Campbell and really the rest of the supporting characters are plagued by the kind of melodramatics pertaining to stage plays, and while I typically say one bad performance in a movie is that actor’s fault, the fact that so many of them here stack like failed trades proves a compromising steering by Young, requiring Turner to work overtime towards assembling any ounce of empathy or humanity to the project.

OVERALL
“Trust” is a single word noun for false advertising, but beyond that a flatly suspenseful and dumbed down version of an ages old home invasion narrative, featuring so many compelling ideas, yet none of them explored with any kind of pursuit or patience to its cause. While Sophie Turner lifts heavier for a project’s integrity than anything she’s done before (Even “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”), the movie’s lack of intelligence and faithfully persistent focus leave her unable to escape the confines of a structure that is continuously collapsing around her, and one that will unfortunately be resurrected once the movie takes up permanent residency on Paramount’s streaming service.

My Grade: 3.3 or F