Trust The Man (DVD)

...is almost as self-absorbed as the characters and is so busy congratulating itself on its witticisms that it forgets how to be funny. Forget about trusting the man and trust me when I say that the only emotion this film is likely to induce in the watcher is boredom.   ... more

Actress Rebecca and her stay at home hubby are having problems; he wants sex all the time and she doesn't. Her brother Tobey refuses to commit to his girlfriend Elaine and then an old flame appears. Love is never as simple as it first seems and everyone is challenged by keeping it together when sex, marriage and jealousy enter the equation.

Writer-director Bart Freundlich has something of a head start in the filmmaking industry, being married to Julianne Moore. If nothing else, it means he always has a recognisable leading lady at his disposal. Certainly, that may be the only reason he managed to secure funding for this drearily predictable and desperately unfunny romantic comedy. For a start, the central premise is nothing new; how many movies about wealthy urbanites agonising over that state of their relationships do we need? If you want a witty take on love-based neuroses in Manhattan, watch Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives". But avoid this tangle of clichés and badly plotted situations.

A huge stumbling block in the screenplay is that lack of sympathetic characters. All the main players are so self-absorbed it's virtually impossible to empathise with them. Rebecca is a cold, demanding actress, her house-husband partner defined solely buy his sexual obsessions, her brother by his inability to commit to his girlfriend and she by her desire for an old-fashioned lifestyle and babies. They all lack depth and come across as a bunch of over-privileged thirty-somethings with a very narrow focus and too much time on their hands. Their conversations revolve entirely around sex and how their relationships are disintegrating, so once you've heard one, you've heard them all. Attempts at comedy are limited to excessive use of sarcasm that would be the lowest form of wit here, were it not for the use of slapstick that seems like a last desperate try at injecting some humour. There are a few mildly amusing moments (like Rebecca's technical description of a porn movie that focuses more on the production values than the action). So-called "comic" supporting characters feel totally out of place in the highly strung world the main protagonists inhabit. These include the outlandish theatre folk that are nothing more than irritating stereotypes. The assertion that men and women talk different languages is borne out in predictable fashion as both sexes talk about each other in emotional or physical terms respectively. Mainly it's an excuse for pointless psychobabble.

Freundlich's direction is workmanlike and lacks the passion you might expect from someone so deeply involved in the project. The result is a staid and predictable movie that fails to engage the audience. You know the direction this is going in from the opening split-screen montage of couples in love around New York. A serious problem is Freundlich's lack of timing. The pacing throughout is monotonous, but I suppose that's to be expected when you centre your movie round a group of people that are all too willing to talk about their situation, but never do anything about it. The result is a load of repetitive talking heads taking place in various upscale New York locales. And when some of the characters finally take action during the slushy ending, their grand gestures feel over the top and therefore fake. Freundlich has no idea how to frame a joke and his many one-liners feel smug rather than funny because he makes so much of them. He can't even get slapstick right, lingering too long and draining the comedy out of it. He doesn't appear to like his characters that much either, allowing his cast to portray them with the minimum amount of effort, leading to a series of phoned-in performances that do nothing to breathe life into his dull script. This all makes for an exceedingly mediocre hundred and three minutes that will make you wish you hadn't bothered.

As Rebecca, Julianne Moore proves that "Freedomland" wasn't an aberration and that she is very good at making very bad career choices. It also proves that though she may be a good dramatic actress, she has no comic timing and this leads to a series of deeply unfunny situations where she can't pull the joke out of the bag when she needs to. And despite this being her second film with David Duchovny, they have zero chemistry so you don't care what happens to them as a couple. She comes across as cold and high maintenance, with no redeeming features.

David Duchovny has never been one of my favourite actors; I find him bland and uninspiring. This should make him ideal casting as Rebecca's husband Tom, who spends much of the movie bored and bemused. Unfortunately he's too disconnected to engage the audience and come across as so dull you can't imagine why anyone would want to have an affair with him. I generally like Billy Crudup, but as Tobey, the script gives him little to build on. He's a slightly geeky man-child you can't empathise with because he's so self-absorbed. You understand his girlfriend's frustration with him but don't root for him to change because he's so thoughtless and feckless.

At first you think Maggie Gyllenhaal's going to pull out another of her cutesy performances as Elaine, but that's before she becomes petulant and demanding. The two main aspects of her personality sit ill at ease with each other and the actress can never reconcile them. Eva Mendes is nothing more than eye-candy as Tobey's old flame Faith, never allowed to be more than a hottie in a series of tight outfits.

Clint Mansell's score matches the rest of the film in its mundanity. It starts off promisingly enough with plenty of snare drum and funky Hammond organ, but soon gets bogged down in sentimentality. Then we're exposed to a surfeit of sappy string arrangements that are heavy on the sad harps when things get a trifle tricky for the characters. There's plenty of up-tempo Spanish guitar for the inevitable montage that shows the protagonists growing as people. The incidental music is utterly inoffensive; using relaxed hip-hop and overly literal indie singer-songwriter stuff to fill in the blanks. There's even a touch of "Let's Get it On" in a very predictable attempt to set the mood for one scene.

"Trust the Man" is the kind of lazy relationship piffle we've seen too much of masquerading as romantic comedy. There's nothing new or exciting about the movie. Though the direction is adequate, Freundlich fails to push his actors, letting them sleepwalk through their roles. The script is almost as self-absorbed as the characters and is so busy congratulating itself on its witticisms that it forgets how to be funny. Forget about trusting the man and trust me when I say that the only emotion this film is likely to induce in the watcher is boredom.  

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