Movie Review: Trust the Man

By Anne Brodie Aug 17, 2006, 10:46 GMT

A smart, sophisticated comedy about the challenges of love and marriage among modern day New Yorkers, "Trust the Man" features the romantic escapades of two couples: a successful actress (Julianne Moore) and her stay at home husband (David Duchovny); and her slacker younger brother (Billy Crudup) and his aspiring novelist girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal). The film follows these four on their pointed, often surprising and frequently hilarious search for love in ...more

The husband and wife team of Julianne Moore and Bart Freundlich have worked on a couple of projects together. They’ve starred Billy Crudup and James LeGros in earlier projects. The little showbiz family has reunited for ‘Trust the Man,’ Freundlich’s first adult comedy.

Earlier films ‘The Myth of Fingerprints’ and ‘World Traveler’ are sober and solemn, dark pieces on breakdowns and pain suffered by muddled characters.

His mood seems to have lightened considerably in ‘Trust.’

He and Moore appear to have a solid marriage and two kids, both of whom appear in ‘Trust’ – and a strong creative connection like a sculptor and his muse.

Okay – four people, a brother and sister (Crudup and Moore) and two friends (David Duchovny and Maggie Gyllenhaal) are a close-knit group. Moore’s married to Duchovny and Gyllenhaal is trying to get Crudup to commit. Crudup and Duchovny are friends and they tell each other everything.

They are all suffering from ennui and three are in therapy. They’ve lost the old zing.

They’re victims of some kind of yuppie malaise that comes from fame (she is movie star), riches, privilege, nice Manhattan digs and the possibility of sunny futures. Vexing to say the least!

Their problems are specific to unacknowledged selfishness so they don’t progress much. Crudup’s shrink has issues himself and cuts him loose, probably because he can’t stand the whiny slacker. It’s one self-obsessed world Freundlich creates.

It’s sometimes nicely drawn and it’s often funny, but cinematic meditations on love are a dime a dozen, so they must be unique and memorable. ‘Trust’ offers nothing new.

The writing makes us feel part of the drama. There is genuine warmth in the script and the characters. It feels naughty to be flies on the wall as the men review their sorry lives and the women plot to get Gyllenhaal and Crudup married. But each character deals with seemingly simultaneously love life complications.

Each is given a chance at infidelity, some take it and some don’t. Some are more concerned about finding and keeping a parking spot, no small feat in NYC, some with expanding their porn collection.

There are the usual New York clichés, frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity, beautiful urban fall turns into winter in Central Park. The film seems inspired by a couple of earlier, similar films, ‘Autumn in New York’ and ... ‘Serendipity.’

While there is nothing overtly wrong with ‘Trust the Man’ – and I still don’t know what the title means – there’s nothing really right about it either. It’s a confection made elegant by Moore’s luminous presence and brightened by Duchovny and Crudup’s goofy humor.

Gyllenhaal doesn’t seem engaged in the story, in fact, she looks bored until a lesbian publisher tries to make her ‘work’ to earn publication.

These people are maddening, and their problems seem dopey.

Come on, fellas, stop your whining and get out of your own way.

‘Trust the Man’ is an okay timewaster and there’s the occasional chuckle, but in all, an unspectacular couple of hours.

Take four friends in New York; give them parking problems, romance problems, selfishness problems and mix with great writing and you have Seinfeld.

This is no Seinfeld.

Limited release August 18th  MPAA: Rated R for language and sexual content.