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 (2010-09-10) (TIFF)
  • April 1, 2011 (2011-04-01)
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 thriller film directed by David Schwimmer and based on a screenplay by Andy Bellin and Robert Festinger, and an uncredited story by Schwimmer. It stars Viola Davis, Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, Jason Clarke, 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. 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 16 years old. Over time, as the two bond by sending phone text messages and through instant messaging, he bumps his age up to 18, 20, then 25. Annie is taken aback at first, but comes to believe that the two of them 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 that he is a man in his 40s. Annie is upset at first, but he charms her into going with him to a motel. Charlie then has her try on some lingerie which he bought for her and begins to touch her inappropriately. When she tells him no, he pushes her down onto the bed and rapes her, and even films the assault.

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 investigation, by taking up the services of a private investigation firm in New Jersey and even stealing a collection of his daughter's chat conversations with Charlie from the FBI. The private investigation proves fruitless, as it is discovered Charlie encrypts his IP address so his location shows up as the Czech Republic. His relationship with his daughter and his wife, Lynn, starts to become alienating, and he questions his work at an advertising firm, which uses provocative advertisements involving teenagers.

Annie still believes Charlie loves her, and is angry at Brittany and her parents. A few more days pass, and although Charlie has not been identified, DNA evidence proves he has sexually abused several other young girls. After seeing pictures of Charlie's other victims, she feels betrayed, and finally admits to herself 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 taking pictures, whom Will recognizes as a registered sex offender. Will violently confronts him - who turns out to be the father of one of Annie's teammates. The assaulted man chooses not to press charges for fear that he will be outed as a sex offender to his family. Will apologizes to the man but Annie feels humiliated. At home, Annie confronts her father, and insists that she wants to move on with her life.

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, as well as revealing her phone number and address. She locks herself in the bathroom and attempts suicide by overdosing with pills, but Will saves her life. 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. He pleads for her 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 seven years of research. The scene where Annie is raped was filmed as late as possible, to ensure a "really safe environment for Liana". 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 reviews.[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]

See also

References

  1. ↑ judeepolds (April 28, 2011). "Trust (2010)". IMDb.
  2. ↑ Trust at Box Office Mojo
  3. ↑ "Trust (2011)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
  4. ↑ "David Schwimmer Interview TRUST". Collider.
  5. ↑ Trust premieres at Toronto Film Festival, 2010 Archived December 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  6. ↑ "Trust (2011) (2011) - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
  7. ↑ "Trust (2011) (2011) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com.
  8. ↑ "Trust – Rotten Tomatoes". Retrieved June 5, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Trust". Metacritic.
  10. ↑ "Trust". rogerebert.suntimes.com. March 31, 2011. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.