Trust

Trust is the stuff that bad rom-coms are made of; why anyone though they could fashion a drama/thriller out of this material, I haven’t the foggiest. Brooke (Victoria Justice) hires Amy (Katherine McNamara), a "decoy" to test her husband Owen’s (Matthew Daddario) faithfulness — or, as Amy puts it, "dangle a chick in front of my husband to see if he'd fuck her" —, and then is all 'well I never!' when Owen does indeed fuck the chick that was dangled in front of him. Once again I’m reminded of George Carlin’s “people in Kilauea, Hawaii who build their houses right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.” I’m also reminded of The Departure, a nice little 2020 drama with a similar premise and a much more sensible handling of said premise. In that film, a man recruited his best friend to test the former’s girlfriend’s loyalty. See how that makes a lot more sense? The Departure understood that such a misguided scheme is 1) a guy thing to do, and 2) a pre-marital thing to do — I mean, it’s a stupid idea under any circumstances, but if you’re going to do it, do it while you’re still single; that way, if worst comes to worst, at the very least you’ve dodged a bullet. After you’re already married, on the other hand, it kinda seems like something you’d just rather not know (The Departure was likewise savvier in how it dealt with the aftermath of the characters’ actions). Anyway. Brooke reasons, or rather rationalizes, that "As they say in Vegas, baby, when you tie, it's a push" — implying that not only she had sex with talentless painter Ansgar, but also that if she did, it’d be okay because Owen cheated on her first. Now, temptation may be the only thing that Owen can’t resist, but that doesn’t change that it was Brooke who arranged for him to be tempted; I believe this is what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any case, Brooke comes across as a conniving little bitch who wanted to fuck around without losing the moral high ground; in other words, she wanted to have her cake and eat it too. If the movie pulled its head out of its own ass and acknowledged the heroine’s true nature, it wouldn’t do wonders for the character’s likability (but then the character would work better if we weren’t supposed to like her), but at least it it’d be honest. As it is, though, we’re somehow meant to feel bad for her, and want her to be happy, and cross our fingers that she’ll save her marriage; the problem is that we can’t simply ignore that Brooke herself is the biggest threat to her and Owen’s conjugal bliss.