#23- Trust- Hal Hartley- 1990

Maria Coughlin: He's dangerous but sincere.
Nurse Paine: Sincerely dangerous.
Maria Coughlin:
No, he's dangerous *because* he's sincere.

Thanks to Byron Karabotsos and his class, I discovered an amazing indie director from the 90s who had critical acclaim when his films were out, but fell off the face of the earth afterwards. Hal Hartley films are a breed of their own. Trust is just one of the many you will see on this list (with more to come as the list rolls on.) His style of comedy and phiosophy intertwined with unconventional directing and acting styles breathes fresh air into the lungs of indie film fans.

The reason Trust makes the list so high is for its sheer hilarity and bittersweet storytelling. The story of two young teens (yes, they are both teens) shows the innocence, yet truth behind young "love." At the very beginning, Maria (played brilliantly by the forgotten Adriene Shelley... btw, she makes me swoon in every role I've seen her in which is two Hartley films) tells her family shes pregnant which kills her father... literally. Matthew (played by my all-time favorite actor and personal hero Martin Donovan) is a genius misunderstood by his boss, his father and the locals who assume he is dangerous. They find each other as he is out looking for a job and she is kicked out of his house. There relationship is one of need as she needs a father for her child and he has no woman in his life (his mother is dead.) The relationship grows out of necessity and out of Trust.

It's a beautifully twisted and hilarious tale of relationships (as most Hartley movies are about these themes.) Wheter he focuses on the twisted family situations that the American culture has seen growing rapidly or the love relationships that build out of strage circumstance, Hartley shapes the dialogue around dry, witty conversations that bounce back and forth like a ping-pong game of ideologies. It doesn't help that intermingled with these deep conversations are random scenes of hilarity. One scene when Matthew is quitting his job at the television repair shop that bores him (he states that "television is the opium of the masses"), he storms out and sees a line of about 20 people with broken televisions. He bumps into a lady who drops her TV and smashes it. He stops, looks at her and says "It was broken already." Things like this take you out of the serious subject matter and smack you in the face to bring you back to the comedy.

Any romantic comedy lover will like this film, although it is far and away not your average romantic comedy. It's a romantic comedy with a deep, dark wit attatched to it. It's a piece about romance, television, society and ultimately, Trust. It's another hard one to find (as there is no DVD version of the film) but if you want to see it, let me know and I can set aside time to show you my ultimately rare and out-of-print VHS copy of this gem.