Trust (2018) – Take care of your ears from a young age

Sardonically bright sun, sarcastically Pinkfloyd’s “Mopeu” – the scenery of an ancient tragedy, where the pagan rascality of the rich and hangers-on in a Californian villa turns into a nightmarish farce: Gordon, the manager and heir to the oil empire of his father, Jean Paul Getty, inhaled the last kilogram of powdered milk with an irrepressible nostril (or what kind of powder, baby powder?), locks himself in the garage, where he strands himself on a hefty fork. Lethal.

The reason for the act is by no means that Gordon imagined himself to be a meatball, the reason is homerically close and obvious: Getty’s dad (Donald Sutherland), a miser, a tyrant and a sensualist who organized a harem on his estate (in a capitalist manner, where each concubine is bound by a rigid contract), brought the offspring to the zugunder.

Daddy Getty is dispassionate, merciless, pragmatic, as befits a weak little man who has climbed to the top of a mountain made up of dollars and crippled destinies. Old Sutherland is brilliantly organic in this role. Daddy Getty considers himself the reincarnation of one of the Roman emperors, Gordon’s death torments him – he despises the remaining three sons, not seeing them as worthy successors to the oily throne of his hydrocarbon kingdom.

And here, in the midst of the wake, the grandson, Paul Getty III (Harris Dickinson), jumps into the limelight like a curly-haired imp from a snuffbox, dressed for Italian weather in worn bell-bottoms and a pink blouse with black stars. A sort of Robert Plant in need and without a voice. There, in distant Rome, Paul’s narrow-minded friends-girlfriends stocked up on baby powder and other powders on credit from local criminals, promising that “Getty will pay” until the debt exceeded six thousand dollars.

The carefree idiocy of young idlers drains the cup of patience of suppliers, and Paul suddenly learns that smelling talc was not free. It’s time to fly to rainy London, to generous and loving ancestors. The magnificent Danny Boyle, who explored the themes of greed and drug addiction in “Shallow Grave” and “On the Needle”, together with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Oscar for adapted screenplay of “Slumdog Millionaire”) brews strong English tea flavored with satire and black (black, do you hear, BLM-cheeks?!) humor.

Already at the beginning of the second series, the head of the Getty security service, Fletcher Chase (Brendan Fraser), easily breaks through the “fourth wall” with the permission of the BTI and the housing office, addressing the monologue directly to the viewer. The role of Chase surprisingly becomes the main one in the film and, perhaps, the best in Fraser’s career. A good-natured and God-fearing cowboy weighing a hundredweight radiates confidence and coziness, setting off the dryness of an old man tycoon and calming the grief of Paul’s mother Gail (who does not need the introduction of the “million dollar baby” Hillary Swank).

What kind of grief, the ignorant reader will ask? The thing here is that the series is based on the real events of the kidnapping in order to ransom a young Half-Third by the Italian mafia in 1973 (grandfather never provided him with the necessary allocations, and in Rome, Martin’s beloved and twin sister remained under the supervision of creditors). Italy of the seventies is not like the gloss of an imaginary well-fed Europe, as Italian bandits have nothing in common with the handsome dolls from The Godfather.

Poverty and corruption, as in the unforgettable “Octopus / La Piovra”, clashes of the “Red Brigades” with the Carabinieri on the streets of Rome, and then this, as the locals called him, “golden Hippie”, floating with the flow, expelled from several schools, occasionally earning mediocre daubs (not wild enough for Picasso’s level, not enough witty for the level of Chagall). Golden Hippie, heir to one of the largest fortunes of his time. Valerian for the cat, pasta for the pasta maker, fatty treats for the mafia. The intrigue and the catch will be in the grandfather, whose money is in the Trust, and everything that turns out to be a commodity causes a desire to bargain.

Well, in addition to the intrigue – the remote mountain landscapes of the Apennine Peninsula and the anachronistic soundtrack, which has both T-Rex and Chicago, and an unexpected diamond: “Tutto Nero” – “Paint It Black” in Italian – performed by Caterina Caselli. And, of course, the severed ear is like the cherry on the cake (the crust on the lasagna). For ten episodes, Boyle and Beaufoy explore the phenomenon of human greed and related vices, armed with a magnifying glass of cinema and a caustic sense of humor.

Caterina Caselli – Tutto Nero

As Fletcher Chase says:

“the rich are the same people, they drink the same water and expel it back in the same way. Only their games are completely different…”

Mind games, cemented in the pursuit of power and imaginary greatness. And in conclusion, our narrator will let you enjoy the consequences of these games and decisions that diverge like ripples on water, causing a tsunami on the other side of the world. Such works will be called classics in the future if there are people who can appreciate them…

PS: A few months before the premiere of the Trust series, the movie “All the Money in the World” was released on the big screens, a version of the same events from Ridley Scott. The full meter is also notable for the fact that Kevin Spacey, the disgraced schoolboy, on whom the men of varying degrees of seduction were lying, had to be hastily cut out of the picture, and the role of Jean Paul Getty was cast by Christopher Plummer for eight shooting days. With all due respect to Director Scott, first of all you should watch the detailed story of Boyle-Beaufoy, and let “All the money in the world” wait.

P. P. S.: Balthazar Getty, who played the main roles in “Red Hot” by Paul Haggis and in the great “Highway to Nowhere” by David Lynch, is the son of Paul Getty III and Martina Sacher-Schmidt, the great-grandson of Jean Paul. I hope this information will not spoil anyone’s viewing.

P. P. P. S.: Did David Lynch know the history of the Getty dynasty? Did the severed ear accidentally appear in his “Blue Velvet”? Circles on the water…