Trust
Review by Ryan Michael Painter
While there are many who take great pleasure in giving a film a good lashing, I prefer to keep things positive. Trust makes that difficult. I’ve procrastinated enough. Let’s dive in.
90 minutes, Rated R
Directed by Carlson Young
Written by Gigi Levangle
Synopsis:
After a scandal, a Hollywood starlet (Sophie Turner) retreats to a remote cabin—but she’s not alone. Betrayed by the man she trusted most, she’s trapped in a brutal game of survival. She can hide, but she can’t run.
Sophie Turner stars as Lauren Lane, America’s sweetheart. When a hacker releases a treasure trove of Lane’s photos the image of a positive pregnancy test threatens to damage her career. The photos of her in various states of undress are shrugged off entirely.
In full damage mode, Lane escapes to a rental home with a curious floorplan. There, completely alone, she’ll hide until the celebrity news cycle moves on to something else.
Meanwhile, the leaked photos have one of Lane’s co-stars, the father in the sitcom she stars in, bunkering down with his team of publicists to prepare for their own round of crisis management. Their solution is rather extreme.
I’ll leave you to guess why.
Also, a duo of smalltime criminals decides to rob the rental home that their roommate is managing. That rental home is coincidently where Lane is hiding out.
What follows is a mind-numbing experience that literally had me saying, “That’s not how doors work,” as Lane finds herself inexplicably trapped in the windowless boiler room to avoid the burglars. Her efforts to escape the room defy logic. What happens on the other side of the door is utterly ridiculous. So much so that it might be considered too unbelievable for a slapstick comedy. Trust is listed as a thriller. The humor is accidental. It’s also not enough to make the film enjoyable in the worst of ways.
Now, insert subplot involving Loretta (Katey Sagal), a local woman known for her unappreciated efforts to save every stray animal in the county. Her activism attracts an unexpected crowd that ultimately puts Lane in more danger. It’s a comedy of errors. Only, it’s not a comedy.
I can’t understate how illogical the script is, how painfully bad the performances are, and how many times I considered walking out of the film to do something that felt productive.
I stayed for the telegraphed ending.
I wonder what film Trust might have been if it was brave enough to try and tackle the relationship between Lane and her co-star head on. Instead, the film trips its way through a silly, inconsequential story. The set up and the ending can stay. The rest can go.
Trust stars Sophie Turner, Rhys Coiro, Billy Campbell, Peter Mensah, Forrest Goodluck, Gianni Paolo, Renata Vaca and Katey Sagal and is in theaters August 22, 2025.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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