Reviewed by Melissa Garza
I woke up this morning, as my husband still slept and decided to watch whatever I could find on Netflix that was most similar to that of a Lifetime Movie plot. I read the synopsis of “Trust” which sounded as though it fit the genre and also had some really good actors. It was an independent movie which I traditionally gravitate too, so decided to give it a shot.
The plot followed a 14-year old girl Annie (Liana Liberato) who falls for the spiel of a man posing as a 16 year old boy named Charlie (Chris Henry Coffey). She soon gets more and more interested in him and as he coaxes her into sexualized conversations over the phone. She tells him everything including her insecurities which he plays on with reassuring compliments. He seeks out sympathy telling her that his mother is ill with cancer.
A few weeks after they start talking, he “confesses” he isn’t sixteen, but instead of the truth tells her he’s 20. After a few more weeks, he tells her that he’s 25. She doesn’t tell her parents nor does she stop talking to him. Though upset about his deception, he turns the table on her saying that she should be mature enough to realize that age doesn’t matter.
Her parents remain completely in the dark and believe her interactions with Charlie are just innocent flirtations online with a teenage boy. They haven’t a clue of what type of trouble she is in.
Two months after, her older brother, Peter (Spencer Curnutt) is preparing for college. Their father and mother, Will (Clive Owen) and Lynn (Catherine Keener) drive him down. When Annie tells “Charlie” that they left for the day, he devises a plan to meet her at the mall. She’s a bit apprehensive, confides in her best friend Brittany (Zoe Levin) and decides to go.
In one of the creepiest scenes ever filmed, “Charlie” arrives. In his late-thirties to mid-forties, he introduces himself and hands her a present. At first, she thinks it’s a joke and begins hyperventilating and crying. He puts on a smile and plays the nice guy claiming to be her soul mate. He once again turns it around on her saying that his dishonesty was out of fear that she was too much of a kid to be able to see that their love is larger than society’s restrictions.
Reluctantly, she agrees to walk the mall with him. Brittany sees her best friend walking with the older man but says nothing. The two go for ice cream and he does his best to put on the front of an overly-understanding, non-judgmental guy who can relate to her like no one else. He makes her laugh and talks about his college life and old times at a fraternity. He even shows her his old Delta handshake which he makes her swear to keep private.
Against her better judgment, she gets in his car. Very awkwardly she doesn’t look at him as he stares at her. He tells her to open the gift he bought her which ends up being a red bra and panties set, that she had privately told him she had wanted before knowing his true age.
He convinces her to go to a motel and try on the undergarments for him. Throughout the entire scene, Liberato does a marvelous job conveying the uncertainness, fear, and insecurity of the teenage girl. It is easy to understand the mistakes she makes over and over again as every woman recalls the emotions they felt when they were younger, more naive, and more trusting.
Unbeknownst to her, “Charlie” records the entire ordeal. She attempts to go back to the bathroom to get changed, but he tells her to sit next to him. She does so and he begins to tell her how beautiful she is and how much he had thought about her. When he starts pushing her to the bed, she asks him to stop and cries though she doesn’t yell or fight. He rapes her and she goes home a very different girl than when she had left that day.
She still believes that he is her boyfriend and tries to call him and chat online but he ignores her messages. He all but disappears which causes her to have a mental breakdown. Brittany pushes for answers and figures out that the man she saw her with was in fact “Charlie.” Annie swears her to secrecy, but Brittany goes with her gut and tells the student counselor.
Quickly, the police arrive and bring her to the hospital. They contact Will and Lynn who arrive moments later in a state of panic. One of the officers gives them a quick rundown of what happened but denies their request to see her. She explains that Annie is in the middle of a rape examination. The FBI and a therapist Gail Friedman (Viola Davis) attempt to lessen their concerns to no avail.
Annie doesn’t believe she was assaulted and still thinks of “Charlie” as her beau. She hides her true emotions and forces herself to think that everyone is making a huge matter out of nothing. She refuses to believe that “Charlie” is a sexual predator and continues to think all he had told her about being special and beautiful was true. Despite, her defense of him the FBI convinces her to reach out to him and lure him into calling her in hopes of a trace. She does so but before anything concrete was received, he realizes that she had told her parents. He hangs up on her and devastated she runs into her room.
Later, the FBI tells her that the perpetrator’s DNA – though they don’t know who it belongs to – matches 3 other cases. The agent shows Annie pictures of the other girls “Charlie” had raped. It is then that she realizes she was not in a relationship but that she herself had been assaulted.
She runs to Gail and breaks down finally accepting the truth. Meanwhile, Will cannot cope with what occurred. He keeps seeing visions of his daughter being raped by sexual predators he found pictures of online. He considers buying a gun and constantly dreams about finding “Charlie” and beating him to a pulp. At a basketball game, he mistakes one of the father’s for a molester and jumps him. Pressure is added when he takes transcripts from the FBI which shows what his daughter and “Charlie” had discussed. The explicitness of his daughter’s messages drive him over the edge. Lynn does her best to calm him down but slowly grows tired of his different plans to lure the predator out. Rather than be there to comfort Annie, his mind is focused on finding “Charlie.”
Things turn out badly at work as he arrives at a mixer where an ad campaign he assisted with displays young girls in mid-dress on large posters. His eyes fail him as they see his daughter in the pictures instead of the models. When confronted by his boss, he confesses he hasn’t been the same since his daughter was assaulted.
Annie pulls away from Will as he makes one mistake after another. The last straw being when he tells Peter about the rape which Annie had specifically asked him not to. Things get worse for her when she goes to school and finds out someone put a photo-shopped picture of her online with a derogatory headline and her phone number. She runs home and attempts suicide by taking every pill she could find. Brittany quickly calls Lynn to warn her what had happened and to tell her to watch Annie. Lynn relays the message to Will who runs upstairs and finds their daughter barely alive.
The conclusion, though unsatisfactory in the conventional mainstream mindset of wanting to see the bad guy fall, does still appeal in the realism and consistency of the story’s message.
The acting was tremendous. Both Clive Owen and Catherine Keener, film veterans did a phenomenal job displaying the torture parents go through when something happens to their child.
Liberato is definitely someone I’d like to see on screen more often. She proves herself a believable actress who is versatile both being able to display the innocent girl in the beginning and the tortured soul throughout.
This is definitely a must-see drama.
Scared Stiff Rating: 9/10
