IMDB profile

In a darker turn from his previous study of modern relationships, The Unbelievable Truth, Hal Hartley presented Trust as the story of a romance/friendship between two abused individuals leading completely separate lives. When Maria(Shelly), a high school dropout, announced her unplanned pregnancy to her family, her father dies of heart failure. Her mother immediately evicted her from the household and her boyfriend broke up with her. Lonely, Maria wandered her town in search of a place to stay. She met Matthew(Donovan), escaping abuse of a more physical nature. He was a highly educated electronics repairman working to render electronic devices mediocre, a pursuit that enraged him. When he met Maria, Matthew opened his house to her, but his father disapproved of the implications of the arrangement and kicked them both out.

One of Hartley's more prominent themes, evident in the film's title, was revealed when both, homeless, made a promise to trust each other after Maria challenged Matthew to the "trust" game, and he caught her falling off a ledge. The "couple" took up residence with her family, when her mother, also disapproving of the relationship, got him drunk and put him in bed with Maria's sister. It was another challenge to their trust, but one Maria passed without comment.

Matthew's difficulty with interpersonal relationships and hatred of deliberate mediocrity led him to get fired from his job, and ultimately, to threaten his workplace with a live grenade, one he had been keeping in is pocket throughout the film "just in case". She came to his aid, and stayed with him in the threatened factory, risking her own life, and when he was led away by the police and driven off, he stared back at her as if in wonder that pure and perfect trust could exist. She stared back, watching him from the street, two green streetlights behind her, waiting.