Trust

There are innumerable forms of peril in Carlson Young’s latest thriller – so many, in fact, that it risks feeling a bit silly – but none of them will make attentive viewers quite as nervous as the moment that a hopeful child leaves her mother’s side and walks unattended into an audition room. Nothing bad will happen to her there, exactly, but it’s the start of a process in which she will find herself more and more an object for other people to control.

Skip forward several years. Lauren Lane (now played by Sophie Turner) is described by a newscaster as America’s sweetheart, an Emmy award-winning actress known to fans as Sally Johnson from The Johnsons. She has a big house and a network of staff to assist her, but still, all is not well. A hacker has discovered that she’s pregnant, and now it’s all over the news; she can’t move for paparazzi. So she takes her dog Georgie (Pinga), and the two of them travel to a remote holiday house so she can get some time to think.

It’s here that she will find herself in physical danger – and a lot of it. First of all, there’s a voyeur watching her every move. Then there are criminals who seem to want to use the place to stash stolen property. Then there is an additional threat related to what can all too easily happen to young women who inconvenience wealthy, powerful men. Before long, she’s trapped in the small boiler room in the middle of the house with no food and no water and a real risk that nobody will come to help. She will bring all her ingenuity and a good bit of physical force to bear as she tries to find a way out.

Young has spoken about bringing aspects of her personal experience to the film (in a spooky coincidence, she learned that she was unexpectedly pregnant just after shooting was completed), and this may go some way towards accounting for the crowded nature of the story. This is balanced by observations of the world beyond the Hollywood bubble, in the small town a few miles from the house where people come together to help Georgie. There’s an affectionate comedy in the film’s depiction of the gulf between life in the hills and life in the city, and this helps to provide breathing space for viewers, time to reflect on the film’s themes rather than being wholly focused on Lauren’s drive to survive.

Lauren does, of course, have big things to think about herself, and although a good part of her focus is on saving her unborn child, her confinement in this internal space full of pipes and strange noises allows her to go through a process of gestation and rebirth herself, gradually letting go of her childlike dependency and acquiring maternal resilience. This is inextricably linked to a determination to take control of her career. It’s a firm rebuke to the still extant notion that motherhood will inevitably diminish an actor’s prospects.

Turner is typically assured in a physically demanding role which also requires some monologuing and a lot of holding audience interest by herself. There’s some nice supporting work, though more might have been done to develop the criminals for a stronger first half. In the middle we spend a lot of time either waiting for things to happen or watching so many plot threads move in the same direction at once that the restriction of possibility essential to generation tension is lost. Though it’s nicely shot, the film takes on a TV-movie quality at times like this, and the cast deserves better.

This is not a bad film, and in places it’s very effective. It nevertheless feels like less than the sum of its parts. Different elements of story and theme compete for space and get in one another’s way rather than contributing to a cohesive whole. Still, Turner fans will get a lot for their money, Pinga is very cute, and, sadly, stories of this sort still very much need to be told.

Reviewed on: 22 Aug 2025