Happily married Will (Clive Owen) and Lynn Cameron (Catherine Keener) are raising three bright children in the suburbs outside of Chicago. Once their doors are locked and the alarm is set, absolutely nothing can harm their family—at least not on Will’s watch.
When their 14-year-old daughter, Annie (Liana Liberato), makes a new friend online—a 16-year-old boy named Charlie whom she met in a volleyball chat room—Will and Lynn don’t think much of it. They reviewed the pictures he sent and discussed his friendship with her, assuming that this is normal with teenagers who connect through the Internet.
The weekend that Will and Lynn are dropping their eldest child, Peter (Spencer Curnutt) off at college in Michigan, Annie and Charlie make plans to meet at the local mall. However, when Annie finally sees Charlie in person, discovering he is an adult who is closer to her parents’ age than to hers, she’s devastated, confused and wary. Through charm and manipulation, Charlie convinces a reluctant Annie to continue spending time with him. He reminds her how close they’ve grown over the past few months, how well they know one another, that when you find your “soul mate” nothing else—including age—matters.
When the subsequent rape comes to light days later, it divides the Cameron family in ways they never would have predicted. It seems that only her therapist, Gail Friedman (Viola Davis), can guide the troubled Annie through the mixed emotions she feels. Meanwhile, Will is haunted by the assault on his daughter as he deals with the growing chasm between him and his family.
Will becomes consumed by rage, impotence, guilt and grief. He cannot stomach the idea that a man like him—a protector, a provider, a father—was unable to shield his oldest daughter from such a terrible experience. When the FBI seems to prove powerless in apprehending the predator, Will takes matters into his own hands. He trolls chat rooms and social networks for the predator—posing as a teenage girl—hoping to stumble upon Charlie. Will quickly becomes obsessed. Images of Annie’s rape infiltrate his every waking thought, causing his work and home life to crumble around him.
Why “trust”?
David Schwimmer is an active member of the Board of Directors of the Rape Foundation in Santa Monica and has been supporting their work at the Rape Treatment Center for more than 10 years. Much of his participation has been fund raising, promoting awareness, prevention and education, as well as acting in and directing several television spots for the organization. He has met many victims and their families, and has heard many stories, but a few years ago one particular father’s account stood out.
It inspired the actor-director to create a film about online predators in today’s Internet age.
Recounts Schwimmer, “One of our invited speakers was a father in the community who spoke about the process of coming to terms with his daughter being groomed, and subsequently raped, by an Internet predator. He described his conflicting feelings of guilt, rage, pain, impotence and responsibility and how it nearly destroyed him and his family. His incredibly frank and revealing story profoundly affected me and I realized then that I had found an unusual path into dramatizing this delicate and difficult subject matter in a way that everyone—especially men—can relate to.”
Schwimmer enlisted the help of his longtime buddy Andy Bellin, who published the novel Poker Nation some years ago, to write the screenplay about the Internet grooming of underage children and its threat to today’s families.
Regarding their collaboration, Bellin says, “David was a huge, integral part in the writing process. He took me to a benefit for the Rape Treatment Center to help me understand his passion for this organization and the work that they do—particularly with child victims of rape and sexual assault.”
A-list cast sign on
AS it turns out, Bellin always had Owen in mind while writing. He admits, “We wrote the role of the father with Clive in my mind, so when our agents told us that Owen wanted to do this movie, have it be his next film, it was a dream come true.” Owen, who creates dynamic characters in whatever he does and has been Oscar-nominated for his role in Closer, says, “It was a hugely impressive script, beautifully written.”
He continues, “I have two daughters so I could relate to this father’s angst and found the script to be very uncompromising in how it explains one of the big topics of modern lives—children and the Internet and how they relate.”
As for landing Owen in this independent film, Tom Hodges, one of the producers, says,
“The fact that Clive loved the script as much as we loved him in the role is kismet. His involvement opened doors for David and I to get this movie made.” Next up was casting the role of the mother, Lynn. Bellin reveals, “Once we had Clive, David showed him the list of actresses he had in mind, with Catherine at the top of his list. Clive saw Keener’s name and that was it: He said he’d always wanted to work with her. Schwimmer called her the next day, sent her the script, and a day later she was in.”
Keener, nominated twice for an Academy Award, smiles, “David and I have the same agent and have been friends for years, so I knew about the subject material.”
As for her reaction to the screenplay, she admits, “When I read the script, I was expecting something good; I just didn’t realize how powerful it was. It was very thought-provoking and completely upsetting. The script shows the Internet in a certain way which we haven’t yet fully explored in movies.”
Another bit of stellar casting was landing last year’s Academy Award-nominee Davis (Doubt) in the key role of the therapist Friedman. Hodges acknowledges, “I’m still amazed that we got Davis to do our movie. She’s right now so popular, she can pick and choose her projects. That she was willing to do our movie and fit it in between the other bigger movies, it speaks volumes of what she is looking to do as an actress, the kind of material she wants to do.”
Davis, who winged in for three days to play the part of the therapist at the beginning of the 29-day shoot, confesses, “This script opened my heart because it humanized a subject that is not portrayed much in the media.”
She says, “The subject of rape and the Internet has been desensitized, but this script gave me compassion for the women and teenagers who have been victimized so I wanted to be a part of this movie—help bring awareness to what is happening in our world today.”
As for getting to direct such high-caliber actors, Schwimmer says, “The fact that our script attracted three Academy Award-nominees such as Owen, Keener and Davis is truly humbling and a testament, I suppose, to the responsibility we felt handling this subject matter. I knew that this material, if presented right, could make a compelling movie, and I’m grateful that our cast believes in this story and wants the film to have the same impact on audiences as I do.”
He concludes, “It’s been deeply moving and inspiring to watch this group of actors invest so much of their talent, and themselves, in bringing these characters to life.”
From Millennium Films, Trust opens on September 7 exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and TriNoma).
