From
Woody Allen to Whit Stillman to Edward Burns, New York-set relationship
dramedies have a long and storied tradition, enough so that they could
almost certainly comprise their own sub-genre at your local video
store. Winsome, wheedling and certain of nothing more than its own
serial ambivalence, Trust the Man represents The Myth of Fingerprints
writer-director Bart Freundlich’s entry into the canon, and if not
quite for all tastes it at least provides a winning showcase for the
underutilized comedic charms of star David Duchovny.
Former
advertising exec Tom (Duchovny) and his actress wife Rebecca (Julianne
Moore) have two kids and a virtually non-existent sex life. Tom’s
serial randiness manifests itself in cajoling, awkward attempts at
sideways seduction. At one point he asks, “Hey, did I tell you I had a
dream about you giving me a blowjob last night?” after they leave from
their once-a-year appointment with a marriage counselor; at another
point he tries to close his eyes and have her narrate the events of a
porno tape. Rebecca’s younger brother and Tom’s best friend Tobey
(Billy Crudup, sporting a pubic tuft of a beard), meanwhile,
perpetually tests the outer limits of his longtime girlfriend Elaine’s
(Maggie Gyllenhaal) patience. After eight years together, she wants to
get married and have a baby, but Tobey is too emotionally arrested (he
has a Sportscenter cell phone ring) and freaked out by the
vague notion that “everyone dies someday” to entertain a serious
conversation period, much less one involving a discussion about
commitment. Both collectively and individually, however, each couples’
status quo is given a jolt when various temptations of infidelity pop
up and ultimatums are issued.
Trust the Man plays as a sort of mainstream-pitched, desperately pitched upbeat companion piece to Freundlich’s previous (and almost wholly unseen) film World Traveler,
which starred Crudup as a reticent man who sets off on a road trip of
indeterminate length and hazy motivation, leaving behind a wife and
small child. If that film was at its core about how intrapersonal
confusion and (in particular, masculine) psychological uneasiness are
never truly defeated, but rather appeased and beaten back into the
recesses of one’s mind, Trust the Man is the more externalized
and optimistic side of that same angst-ridden coin. Househusband Tom is
also a proxy for Freundlich, who in real life is married to Moore
(their two children together are also Tom and Rebecca’s son and
daughter), and in this regard too the movie is an interesting
exploration of subjugated masculinity.
The leading performances here are a breezy delight, but best movies
of this ilk — and, indeed, all comedies — find at least some of their
humor in cracked supporting players and the world at large, and
Freundlich falters a good bit when stepping outside of his main
quartet. James Le Gros is overly broad as a kooky, old
singer-songwriter fling of Rebecca’s, with whom she tries to set Elaine
up during the latter’s break from Tobey, not to mention the fact that
it stretches credulity that any sister would so boldly enable her
brother’s ex in romantic pursuit, no matter how close of friends they
were. Similarly, Eva Mendes is woefully undersketched as a former
college girlfriend of Tobey’s who wanders back into his life. One
minute she’s married and introducing him to her husband, later she’s
nonchalantly waving off their relationship and throwing herself at
Tobey.
Of all of the leads, Duchovny connects the most consistently and
heartily, conveying the depths of panic, disaffection and nervousness
inherent in male maturation without ever sacrificing or shortchanging
the movie’s somewhat broad comedic strokes. Trust the Man’s
wintry snow is fake and its narrative arcs of temptation relatively
predestined, but the film’s idiosyncratic delight is rather real, with
Freundlich finding charm and humor in quotidian struggles. (Fox Searchlight, R, 100 mins.)