Director: Mick Davis
Writer: Jimi Petulla
Cast: Jimi Petulla, Natasha Wilson, Logan Arditty, Sydney Bullock, Tim Hazelip, Miljenko Matijevic, Eric Roberts, Robby Krieger
Running time: 1hr 34mins
Trust in Love is set in Malibu. Indeed, an opening caption claims that “the events depicted in this film took place in Malibu, California”. The caption goes on to say that, with the exception of changing the names, “the rest has been told exactly as it occurred”. However, when the end credits close with the customary line “Any resemblance or similarity to persons, living or dead, or any actual event is entirely coincidental and unintentional”, that feels like a more trustworthy statement.
To this end, the Malibu setting works perfectly. California’s surf coast has such a veneer of plasticised unreality (perhaps especially to sceptical British observers unsettled by the relentless good weather), so it makes sense that many of the inhabitants of this film feel less like real people and more like actors playing actors, playing roles.
This is Hollywood, where everyone is comically good looking. Even the folks who are supposed to be a bit less pristine have a rugged charm about them. Our leading man Mickey (Jimi Petulla) somehow looks exactly like what you’d get if you stopped three quarters of the way through turning Bob Odenkirk into Iggy Pop.
Hollywood, you say? Well quite. Director Mick Davis is a 30-year Tinseltown veteran. Around the time some of the artists who submit to Indy Film Library were thinking about starting kindergarten, or even being born, Davis was cranking out the script for Another 9½ Weeks, the poor sod. So, Trust in Love is something of an outlier for IFL. A $750,000 budget allows for a feature length running time and a sizeable cast and crew. There are multiple attractive and well-used filming locations and the cinematography, even if it slightly overeggs the drone shots, never looks cheap.
Which brings us back to the Malibu Paradox: just because something looks good, does that mean it is good? Well in this case, yes, I thought so. This is a decent movie, with its heart firmly in the right place, that at its best moments is genuinely moving.
But it’s not without shortcomings. As so often, in all but the most well-crafted films, consistency of tone is a real challenge. Here we’re largely in melodrama territory, as grizzled music producer Mickey Ferrera tries to keep both his family and his work on the rails. His wife wants a divorce, his teenage kids are going through the mill and he’s trying to wring a sellable album out of a band the record company feels should have retired some time ago. So, the occasional insertions of broad humour (loud toilet noises – really?) feel not so much odd as genuinely unwelcome. Mickey’s brother Bobby works more effectively as a form of comic relief because his surf bum character is rounded and believable and his pearls of stoner wisdom are delivered with supportive intent, mostly.
A couple of other notes I’d offer are that the font for the opening title is horrendous, looking like something from a self-help PowerPoint, and the film’s finale feels a bit trite after all that’s gone before. Also, it’s established many times that Cody, the teenage boy, makes “beats” and that these could help the band crack the code for success, so it would be good if they didn’t just sound like ‘Shop Demo 1’ on a very basic drum machine. But they do, which is a shame as music is a key element in the story and it’s generally handled very well. The band, should you wish to venture down a hair metal rabbit hole, is played by glam rock survivors Steelheart.
As well as starring as Mickey, Jimi Petulla wrote and co-produced the film. It very much feels like his project as a result, and it’s largely thanks to his commitment that it ultimately works, the positives outweighing the negatives. Mickey comes across as a fundamentally decent guy, pulled in several directions but trying to put others first. He’s far from perfect, but in the airbrushed world of Malibu, California, that’s kind of a good thing. He’s real. Whether or not his story is, who knows?