Film Reviews

Trust the Man

• Rating:
• Director: Bart Freundlich
• Starring: Billy Crudup
• Details: US / 103mins (16s).

Men, everything you're doing is wrong, and you should do what women say because they know what's best since you're too stupid to think for yourself. That's the message writer/director Bart Freundlich is sending out with his latest film Trust The Man, a supposedly realistic romantic-comedy. The problem is, Freundlich has made a movie that would repel any man violently from such ideals and run for the caves, rather than accept what women want of them - which is, as Freundlich suggests here, everything. The men that feature are either sex-crazy house husbands who don't understand the pressure that their wives are under (Duchovny's Tom) or immature slacker journalists who lounge around the house all day and can't even shift their asses off the couch to give their girlfriends a lift to work (Crudup's Tobey).The story takes place in Woody Allen's New York, a place where everyone has a funny quip or one-liner about sex, love and relationships; and it's here that Rebecca (Moore) fears that her marriage is falling apart while would-be children's writer Elaine (Gyllenhaal) finally realises after seven years that Tobey is not ready to commit to marriage. If it wasn't for the agreeable performances, Trust The Man would be an incredibly annoying film, but Duchovny and Crudup manage to raise it from the very bad to just bad. Faring better than their female counterparts (as Freundlich obviously understands them better), the two lads have fun in their roles despite being hamstrung by the knowing script that regularly tangents off the page, hovers above no-plot land, before crashing into the many large expositions scattered around. Trust The Man is the movie conformists have been waiting for.

Review by Gavin Burke