Trust

It’s hard to gain. It’s easy to lose. It’s almost impossible to get back.

“Trust.”

That’s the title, and topic, of a twisty new marital drama featuring Brooke and Owen, an attractive, successful, having-it-all Manhattan couple. He’s a local TV anchor on the rise. She’s just opened her own art gallery and signed a hot client.

They’re perfect together.

But what are they like when they’re apart? What happens when they go on business trips with colleagues? Who are they texting when they’re up late at night?

They both begin to wonder. Then Brooke decides to find out.

And discovers, sometimes, there are things you’re better off not knowing.

On some levels, Trust, adapted from a play and directed by Brian DeCubellis, is just a simple, glossy romantic entertainment, the sort that often fills up basic cable programming. Pretty people doing ugly things. Sex and betrayal, but only in the very best zip codes.

But DeCubellis elevates things, just a bit.

First, there’s that cast, drawn largely from television. Matthew Daddario – who looks like a better shaven Adam Grenier – is perfect as a shallow but pleasant TV journalist. Victoria Justice deftly portrays a woman slowly being consumed by doubt.

And as the temptations who wander into their path, Katherine McNamara and Lucien Laviscount are exactly what they need to be – as sexy, and about as thinly drawn, as the cover art for a paperback romance.

Second, there’s the film’s setting, which brings back a pre-pandemic New York, from funky Indian restaurants on 6th street to the bright lights of Fifth Avenue at Christmas. For anyone anywhere emerging from more than a year of hibernation, it’s a lively reminder of what we’ve been missing.

And finally, there’s the narrative itself. It begins like a fairly conventional will-they-or-won’t-they story, with Brooke on her own in Paris and Owen contemplating a quick assignment in Vegas. But then things get complicated.

And then they get more complicated still, once the flashbacks start and we realize not everyone has the whole story. And some never will.

Of course, as with lots of genre films, there are a few implausibilities, and at least one twist that depends on a wild coincidence. And the scheme Brooke comes up with – while a favorite of a few other, far-fetched films – doesn’t seem like one that any normal woman would impulsively embrace.

But the film is filled with bright colors set to a bouncy soundtrack. The city looks lovely, and the people are nice to look at. And the story, however outlandish it gets, is still told in an interesting way, and will keep you happily wondering until the end.

Trust me.