Hey, everyone. Capone in the Windy City here getting my Maggie Gyllenhaal fix for the week in spades.
In just the last month or so, she's popped up in four films (including The Great New Wonderful, Monster House, and World Trade Center), with Sherrybaby and Stranger Than Fiction still due before year's end. 2006 is the year she came into her own as an actress in both big and small films, and she deserves it sure as hell. But her ensemble dark comedy Trust the Man, about two New York couples struggling not to self-implode under the weight of their own egos, is not one of her better offerings this year.
Gyllenhaal's Elaine is paired with the eternal slacker Tobey (an almost unrecognizable Billy Crudup). He refuses to commit in the form of any talk of marriage despite their many years of living together, and eventually she leaves him. Much of the film follows his ridiculous attempts to win her back, and the fact that, as I'm writing this, I can't remember if they end up together or not speaks volumes to the gripping nature of this film.
Tobey's older sister Rebecca (Julianne Moore) is married to househusband Tom (David Duchovny). She is a successful stage and film actress, who seems as bored by her home life and kids as she is enthusiastic about her career. Strangely enough, it's Tom who strays in the fidelity department. (Let me add here that whomever thought it was a good idea to reunite the "comedy team" of Moore and Duchovny of Evolution fame needs to be shot.)
Trust the Man has a fistfuls of silly fights and dialogue that I'm sure was meant to be snappy and enlightened about the constant struggle to keep relationships balanced and exciting, but it all seems so petty. All of these characters have good lives with nice places to live, so their incessant whining seems as about as important as a scuff mark on a new pair of shoes. Crudup fairs best in terms of the performances. His character is so clueless and self-centered (and he acknowledges this) that at least he's interesting and entertaining to a degree.
Writer-director Bart Freundlich (Moore's real-life husband and collaborator on The Myth of Fingerprints and World Traveler) has produced his first stinker in my estimation. The man is talented and insightful most of the time, but this work comes across as vapid and insignificant, despite the talented cast. There are some nice cameos by the likes of Eva Mendes, James LeGros, Ellen Barkin, and Garry Shandling as a marriage counselor, but it all seems like window dressing taped to a brick wall.
With the lineup in front of and behind the camera, I'd expected something much better. What we're left with is recycled romantic comedy drivel mixed with pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Not an appealing combination.
Capone
