Trust (Confidenza) - Film Review

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Posted 2024-09-06 by Jen ⇒ follow

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Trust aka Confidenza - an Italian film with English subtitles, is Director Daniele Luchetti's highly anticipated and star-studded new film. It's part psychological thriller and part relationship saga and follows a stormy love affair and a web of secrets. Set to a moody soundtrack by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Trust is a complex and sophisticated study of human behaviour, loves and fears.

The aging Pietro (Elio Germano) is about to receive a presidential award for his essays on teaching. His former student Teresa Quadraro (Federica Rosellini), now a distinguished professor herself, is to deliver the commendation speech at the ceremony. However, the two are former lovers who, one night long ago, shared their greatest secrets with each other, and now Pietro fears that his devastating secret may come out. With a duration of 136 minutes, the cast includes Elio Germano, Federica Rosellini, Vittoria Puccini, Pilar Fogliati, Isabella Ferrari, and Giordano De Plano. You'll have the opportunity to watch the film at the upcoming Italian Film Festival over Sep-Oct 2024.

Pietro Vella is a dedicated teacher who believes he can help students strive for a better future, given a lot of attention and love, and he is revered by all those he teaches. One of his students, Teresa is bright and a little rebellious and precocious. She captures Pietro's attention and though he doesn't acknowledge it, he's a little attracted. A few years later, upon catching up with some old students, he discovers that Teresa did not take advantage of her education and now works as a waitress in a restaurant. He visits her there and encourages her to further her studies, but she's not ready to follow the will of others. Very straightforward and intense, she accuses Pietro of being attracted to her in the past, and how inappropriate that would have been as she was not in a position of equal power. He may deny all he wants, but she's dogged and never waivers from being straightforward and honest.

He surrenders and they get entangled in a romantic yet tempestuous affair. Always searching for more, after a fight, Teresa insists they must share their deepest secrets to bond for life. One so shameful or shocking, that were it to be made public, it would destroy that person's life. It would also mean they are each other's person who can truly say they really know each other intimately more than anyone else. However, soon after Pietro really opens up, the relationship ends. He awakes to empty cupboards and Teresa is gone. Time passes, life happens, and Pietro's stature as a writer grows and his life is settled with his wife, a fellow professor, and kids. However, he is haunted by the possibility that Teresa may one day reappear and tear apart his life as he knows it, with the secret she harbours.

Ultimately, this film is a deep analysis of human behaviour and the question of trust. The story spans the 1990s to the present, and continually jumps backwards and forwards to past and present. The secret is cleverly handled and keeps you on edge about what could be so devastatingly bad that it has Pietro living in fear and tied to Teresa in a life-long bond like she inadvertently wanted. It makes you start looking for clues, trying to work out what this secret is, and may even drive you a little crazy. Satisfaction won't come easily.

The pace and storyline for the first half of the film keep you pretty engaged, however, as the second half rolls on, I got a little lost and began to wonder what it was all about, what the film was trying to achieve, as it darted about, and I felt, it had lost the plot and just became a little lengthy and had lost its thrill for me. It just becomes a story of cliches on extramarital relationships, dysfunctional families and dealing with fears. Scenes of a nosebleed at a wedding, the presence of rotting lemons taking centre stage, and a black raven around Vella's house was perhaps meant to be a foreboding forecast of what was to come in the future, but it was all too abstract and heavy and perhaps belonged in a horror film, which this wasn't. The intense performance and nature of Teresa is well expressed by actor Federica Rosellini, however, it didn't give much room for character development. The only character fully developed was Pietro (Elio Germano), whose life was the crux of the story.