TRUST THE MAN A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2006 David N. Butterworth
*1/2 (out of ****)
"Trust the Man" opens with a potty joke: David Duchovny's character encouragingly empathizes with his young son's constipation. Strike 1! In its second sequence, Elaine (the ubiquitous Maggie Gyllenhaal) is trying to converse with Tobey, her boyfriend of seven years, but makes the mistake of standing... in front of the sports channel (Tobey is played by the ubiquitous Billy Crudup). Strike 2! Scene three: Duchovny's Tom and his wife Rebecca (Julianne Moore) are seated side by side on an analyst's couch. Rebecca complains that Tom's a sex maniac and when Tom disagrees she mouths a shocked "twice a day!" to their shrink. Strike 3!
Before Brad Freundlich's film is more than 15 minutes old it's already struck out in the domestic-clichés-that-have-been-done-to-death- and-then-some department.
Other, better writer/directors might have picked up from this wayward start. After all, that's a pretty decent foursome Freundlich has assembled (well, threesome; Moore is his wife so he didn't have to assemble her exactly). Alas, the clichéd, predictable, and poorly written opening material is a mere hint at what's to come.
For a film dealing with the insidiousness of infidelity, "Trust the Man" covers no new ground (unless you consider cameos by Garry Shandling as a therapist and Ellen Barkin as a lesbian new ground). Its characters toss around feelings of dissatisfaction and discomfort and then, after a few testings of the waters and trial separations, thrust themselves back together with inappropriate passion.
Tom wants more sex than Rebecca so he has a fling with a divorcee from daycare. Elaine decides she wants a baby but realizes that Tobey doesn't even want to marry her, let alone father her child. Bingo! Both women kick their men out of the house and it's then--and only then- -that Tom and Tobey realize that what they had is what they really want. Really. (Does it matter that Tobey's Rebecca's brother? Not really.)
Things come to a head--surreally--at Lincoln Center, where Rebecca is performing in some Southern Belle melodrama. The men, black-tied and busting to make good in the stalls, express their feelings for all to hear while fellow audience members stand around awestruck like showroom dummies.
Good proportions of "Trust the Man" feel woefully incomplete. There's a one-sided flirtation between Rebecca and one of her co-stars that's never fully explored. Likewise, Tobey seems briefly intent on pursuing his psychiatrist's personal life but it goes nowhere. Elaine, a busy receptionist at a Manhattan publishing house, is writing/illustrating her own children's book which leads to an unexpected offer (in more ways that one!) but that juicy plot thread goes nowhere either. One character revisits the theory that women have to trap men into marriage and/or having children but again it's a mere aside, not something deemed worthy of development. And the lovely Eva Mendes, who receives (equal) top billing as far as the film's publicity materials are concerned, has a truncated role as an old friend of Tobey's who still has the hots for him.
Perhaps Freundlich's original cut of the film ran considerably longer than 103 minutes and some nervous executive panicked at the 11th hour, or someone slipped up in the editing room. Either way I'm not sure which man, exactly, we're supposed to trust but after this experience I'm not likely to seek out a Bart Freundlich picture any time soon.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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