Trust (2010 film)

Trust (2010 film)
Trust (stylized as trust_) is a 2010 American drama thriller film directed by David Schwimmer and written by Andy Bellin and Robert Festinger, based on an uncredited story by Schwimmer. Starring Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, Jason Clarke, Liana Liberato, and Viola Davis, the film follows a fourteen-year-old girl who becomes a victim of sexual abuse after meeting a man posing as a teenage boy on an online chat room.
Trust premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2010, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 1, 2011. Despite underperforming commercially, the film received positive reviews, with Liberato's performance earning critical praise. Liberato won the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival, and Schwimmer was nominated for the Grand Special Prize at the Deauville American Film Festival.
Plot
For her fourteenth birthday, Annie Cameron receives a laptop from her parents, Will and Lynn, and she soon meets a boy named Charlie in an online chat room. Charlie initially claims to be 16 years old, but eventually confesses that he is 20, and 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. When he arrives, she discovers that he is actually a man in his late 30s. Charlie convinces the distressed and uncomfortable Annie to have ice cream with him at a café. Annie later accompanies Charlie to a motel, where he makes her try on lingerie he bought her before raping her, filming the ordeal. At school, Annie's best friend Brittany confronts her, having seen her with Charlie at the mall while working at a salon. After Brittany notifies the school administration, the police arrive and depart with Annie, drawing attention from other students. The events initiate an investigation, led by FBI Agent Doug Tate.
The FBI have Annie call Charlie in an attempt to identify him, but he figures out the ruse and blocks her number before they can trace his location. Will hires a private investigation firm from New Jersey to catch Charlie, but this proves fruitless when they realize Charlie masks his IP address so that his location shows up as the Czech Republic. As his obsession with catching Charlie deepens, Will's relationship with his family becomes strained, and he starts having nightmares of his daughter being raped. He also begins questioning his work at an advertising firm, which often uses provocative images of teenagers in their advertisements. Annie begins to see hospital counselor Gail Friedman, with whom she confides that she loves Charlie and believes Charlie loves her too. When Annie returns to school, Brittany tries to apologize, but Annie orders Brittany to never speak to her again.
Charlie has still not been identified, but DNA evidence proves that he has previously sexually abused several other young girls. After seeing pictures of Charlie's victims, Annie flees her home and seeks consolation from Friedman, before finally admitting to herself that she was raped. The next morning, Annie tries to move on with her life by participating in her school's volleyball game. Will sees a man in the crowd taking pictures of the girls, and mistakes him for one of the men from the registered sex offender list. Will violently confronts him, but he turns out to be the father of one of the players on the oppposing team, and the assaulted man declines to press charges. Will apologizes to Annie for his actions, but she feels humiliated, insisting that her life is ruined because of him.
Annie learns from Brittany about a website in which people are belittling her assault and posting photo manipulations of her in pornographic poses, as well as revealing her cellphone number and address. After returning home, Annie locks herself in the bathroom and attempts suicide by overdosing on pills. A panicked phone call from Lynn prompts Will to search the house for Annie. Will finds Annie in the bathtub and forces her to vomit up the pills, and she is rushed to hospital. Brittany sleeps over with Annie to keep her company, mending their broken friendship. Annie wakes up and finds her father sitting outside in the freezing cold. Will admits that he blames himself for not doing enough to protect her and pleads for her forgiveness, even though he believes he does not deserve it. Annie breaks down crying and then embraces him. A home video reveals that Charlie is actually a high school physics teacher named Graham Weston, and that he is married and has a young son.
Cast
Liana Liberato as Annie Cameron
Clive Owen as Will Cameron, Lynn's husband and Annie's father
Catherine Keener as Lynn Cameron, Will's wife and Annie's mother
Viola Davis as Gail Friedman, a hospital counselor
Jason Clarke as Doug Tate, an FBI agent
Chris Henry Coffey as "Charlie" / Graham Weston, the older man Annie meets online
Noah Emmerich as Al Hart, Will's boss
Spencer Curnutt as Peter Cameron, Will and Lynn's son and Annie's older brother
Aislinn Debutch as Katie Cameron, Will and Lynn's youngest daughter and Annie's younger sister
Zoe Levin as Brittany, Annie's best friend
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.
Release
The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.
Reception
Box office
Out of its $4 million budget, Trust earned only $120,016 in North America and $475,423 internationally, for a worldwide gross of $595,439.
Critical response
Trust received positive reviews from critics. , the film holds a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 66 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." The film also has a score of 60 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 18 critics indicating mixed or average reviews.
In his review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and stated: "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."
References
External links
2010 films
2010 independent films
2010s teen drama films
2010 thriller films
American independent films
American teen drama films
American thriller films
Films about child sexual abuse
Films set in Chicago
Films shot in Chicago
Films shot in Michigan
Films about rape
Films directed by David Schwimmer
Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation
2010 drama films
Films about cyberbullying
2010s English-language films
2010s American films