Trust (1990)

• Year: 1990
• Released: 20 Sep 1991
• Country: United States, United Kingdom
• Adwords: 4 wins & 2 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103130/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/trust
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
• Runtime: 107 min
• Writer: Hal Hartley
• Director: Hal Hartley
• Cast: Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Rebecca Nelson
• Keywords: dark comedy, romantic comedy, long island, new york, repairman, unwanted pregnancy, high school drop out,

	7.4/10
	67/100

Trust Storyline

When high school dropout Maria Coughlin announces her pregnancy to her parents, her father drops dead on the floor. Her mother kicks her out of the house and her boyfriend dumps her, so Maria is left alone and homeless. This is when she meets Matthew Slaughter. Matthew is an educated high school graduate with a great talent for fixing electronic devices, but he can’t hang on to a job because of his principled attitude towards quality. When Maria accepts Matthew’s offer to help her, they begin to form a relationship with each other in which both of them begin to change.—Leon Wolters

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Trust Movie Reviews

Surprisingly heartfelt and unique

I quite enjoyed this movie but it’s difficult to explain what made it stand out to me. Despite being released in 1990 it feels like it has more 80s charm than some of those awful 90s teen movies. It has a tone to it more akin to Heathers.

There’s not much in the way of plot but the actors really sell the roles without ever being reduced to caricatures. Adrienne Shelly was lovely and you buy her relationship with Martin Donovan. I doubt this movie could get made these days but him being in a relationship with a highschool girl is well-written. It is not overtly sexual and he is not made to be a predator preying on a naive teenager. If anything, she is more emotionally developed than him so the terms of their coupling seem to be dictated by her.

Lastly, this movie is impressively shot. Nicely composed shots, great use of close-ups for emotional scenes a few tracking shots that I thought were excellent.

All in all, it feels like a movie that could have been forgotten about but is well worth your while to check out.

This is What You Can Make in 11 Days

When high school dropout Maria Coughlin (Adrienne Shelly) announces her pregnancy to her parents, her father drops dead on the floor. Her mother kicks her out of the house and her boyfriend dumps her, so Maria is left alone and homeless.

Martin Donovan really excels here and represents a type of person some of us know all too well. The man who rebels against the world, but in a sort of passive-aggressive, nihilistic fashion. It is interesting that this film came out in 1990, as the 90s were very much a nihilistic decade for film and music, and the character of Matthew Slaughter sort of anticipates that.

Hal Hartley may not be as well known as Jim Jarmusch or (early) Richard Linklater, but he has that same independent vibe. He has done here for Long Island what Linklater did for Austin.

Unusual characters brilliantly portrayed

Trust opens with a stereotypical ignorant high school girl named Maria making petty demands of her parents and deliberately scandalizing them by explaining her future plans which involve marrying her jock boyfriend. She explains that he’ll have to because she’s pregnant and then leaves before she has a chance to realize that the news has caused her father to have a heart attack.

Since she does leave we have a while longer to become familiar with her before her perfect world begins to crumble around her. She carelessly goes clothes shopping during the day and only stops by the school she is supposed to be attending to talk to her boyfriend. He’s more worried about the upcoming football game than anything she can tell him; news of her pregnancy only angers him and he makes it clear that he won’t take care of the child. Things get progressively worse for her as she’s kicked out of her house, has a conversation with an insane woman, and is nearly raped before retreating to a quiet street where she attempts to drown her sorrow in a six pack.

At this point Maria happens to meet Matthew, a gifted machinist who is so unsatisfied with his foolish employers and demanding father that he has developed a nasty violent streak. This initially seems to be an excellent match as the newly disillusioned Maria has become just as averse to nonsense as Matthew. The two slowly get to know each other and each one realizes that the other satisfies an innate desire that has previously gone unmet. Unfortunately circumstances keep arising to drive them apart and Matthew puts his trust in the wrong people.

Writer/director Hal Hartley infuses this film with a uniquely cynical wit that meshes perfectly with the material to create a work that is at once funny and emotionally engaging. The film also is thematically satisfying in that it explores the attitudes of the characters and how those attitudes have been developed. Specifically, we see how the trust characters place in other people, particularly family members, is abused and subverted and how this has shaped various characters over time. Trust is one of those rare films that not only encapsulates a certain time and place but also presents some genuine truths about human behavior and offers a consistently engaging viewing experience.