Trust The Man (2006)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: C-
Some
films are so bad that they are likely to be forgotten when bad films are
remembered for the year. Writer/director
Bart Freundlich’s Trust The Man is
such a film for the calendar year 2006.
It is about a couple in trouble played by David Duchovny and Julianne
Moore and their relationship with another couple played by Billy Crudup and Maggie
Gyllenhaal. The Duchovny/Moore couple is
in therapy with a know-it-all played by Gary Shandling (who made the even worse
and just as goofy Town & Country)
to no effect.
The
screenplay thinks all of its sex and toilet jokes are funny because they are
said by more “intelligent” and “sophisticated” people with some money, but all
it does is make everyone look a dozen times more idiotic and you have zero
sympathy for anyone here as a result.
That a cast of good and likable actors are wasted in this mess is a
shame, but they are also the only reason this is not an outright bomb, though
it comes close. As for the characters,
they deserve, misery, unhappiness and disaster, because that is what the viewer
gets for 100 soulless minutes.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is soft throughout, though color is not
bad and all are an improvement from the awful pan and scan 1.33 X 1
flipside. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a
little better than the picture, but what little depth it had is paired down for
the 1.33 version. Extras include a
Freundlich/Duchovny audio commentary, deleted scenes with their comments as
options and a making of featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
