‘Every Parent’s Online Nightmare’
The unparallelled Frum Forum has a fantastic piece up by writer Telly Davidson, reviewing a film by David Schwimmer, he of “Ross” fame from the television series Friends. Schwimmer has made a film that explores the world of an affluent, white teenage girl who is subjugated by much, much older man:
While Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow built solid careers on the silver screen, and Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry have lit up screens large and small in the seven years since the Friends went their separate ways, David Schwimmer’s career has been, while lower-profile, in some ways almost as deserving to note. As would befit his nebbish alter ego Ross Geller, his specialty has been starring in and producing Broadway and Hollywood stage plays, and directing (and occasionally starring in) downbeat indies like Run Fatboy Run and Duane Hopwood.
This month’s directorial issue from him, Trust, is his most important post-Central Perk work yet – aided and abetted by In the Bedroom scribe Robert Festinger and Andy Bellin, and a powerhouse cast, including young Liana Liberato in what should be a breakout role. Trust me: Trust is an excellent movie, the kind of film that in the era of Ordinary People or Kramer vs. Kramer would have been a shoo-in for a Best Picture nomination, and one that bears comparison to Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King in their prime.
The movie tells the story of Annie (Liana Liberato), the 15-year-old middle child of a white, well-off, attractive, and functional family in suburban Illinois, with happily married parents, doting grandparents, Mercedes and Volvos and swimming pools, and everyone headed for college. This isn’t some Jerry Springer contestant’s abandoned daughter, desperate for male validation in an unsafe neighborhood. Annie is wholesomely attractive, addicted to texting and Twitter and Facebook, and she just got her first Little Black Dress for her birthday – the better to help her swim in the fast lane with the sophisticated “cool girls” at school.
And Annie’s already taken the first step. She’s in the middle of an online relationship with a “hawt and sXe boi” whom she thinks is a 15-year-old peer from California, but later reveals himself as a 20-year-old college athlete named Charlie. That’s a little alarming, but it’s still a somewhat understandable age difference. But wait — Charlie later reveals he’s 25 and a grad student. Then again, Annie’s seen his blond, buff, and youthful picture, and while 25 is a little long in the tooth, it’s not like he’s icky-old, like her parents. She agrees to meet him, turned on by the furtive thrill of this “older” man taking an interest in her.
It’s pretty weighty stuff and one of the commentators on Frum Forum left a comment that is likely what most readers are thinking:
Good review but no thanks, I have zero desire to see this movie, life is enough of a bitch as it is without being confronted by more reality.