TRUST
(director/writer: Brian DeCubellis; screenwriters: based the play Push by Kristen Lazarian, Kristen Lazarian, K.S. Bruce; cinematographer: David Tumblety; music: Greg Pliska/Joel Douek; cast: Victoria Justice (Brooke Gatwick), Matthew Daddario (Owen Shore), Katherine McNamara (Amy), Lucien Laviscount (Ansgar Doyle), Tyler Herwick (Second Buyer), Lindsey Broad (Eleanor), Rosa Gilmore (Kim), Martin Fisher (Larry), Alexander Blaise (Senior Buyer), Valery Lessard (Paris Hotel Clerk), Nathalie Carvalho (Diana, journalist); Runtime: 94; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Steven Klinsky, Brian DeCubellis, Tom Guida; Untravelled Worlds/Vertical Entertainment; 2021)
“Gets over as bad art.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brian DeCubellis (“Manhattan Night”) is the writer-director of this predictable, salacious, soap opera rom/com about the trust factor of staying true in marriage. It’s set in New York City and for a short time in Paris. With a sorry-ass story and below average actors, the film gets over as bad art.
Upstart new NYC gallery owner Brooke (Victoria Justice), puts all her married savings into the gallery after she quits working at Sotheby’s auction house. She is married to the bored with his job TV news anchor hubby Owen (Matthew Daddario), and wonders about him because he’s so secretive.
The womanizing Irish artist with a potential for making a living on sexual themed art, Ansgar (Lucien Laviscount, Brit actor, miscast in a role he can’t even master an Irish accent), was discovered online by Brooke. Her unlikable artist find goes on a business trip to Paris with her. Brooke is also his agent and has paid for his relocation to the Big Apple.
The artist in a NYC gallery interview tells the journalist (Nathalie Carvalho) he sleeps with all his models and they enjoy it. While her hubby is intrigued by the seductive stranger he meets in a Chinatown bar, an aspiring college-aged pretty blonde TV news journalist named Amy (Katherine McNamara), who has the hots for him.
In this banal film, what happens to these comfortable millennials in their relationships is what it’s all about (as we’re kept in the dark throughout if either one had an extra-marital affair).
The shallow film is based on the play Push by Kristen Lazarian, and is co-written by Lazarian, DeCubellis and K.S. Bruce.
REVIEWED ON 3/20/2021 GRADE: C