Trust in Love (2024) Film Review
Trust in Love, by director Mick Davis, is a semi-biographical journey about the life of Jimi Petulla. Petulla, an educator and specialist in the music and radio industries, sits on a desk and writes a screenplay that helps him cope with whatever’s going through his mind. The film doesn’t exactly aim at being a checklist for what’s real and what’s not, since Davis decides to make the modern divorce story a comedy, one that will provide laughs when you least expect it. This is Petulla’s statement about themes like fatherhood, friendship, and maturity in the face of adversity. Regardless of how far you’re willing to go in supporting the sometimes awkward elements of comedy, the film ends up being a heartwarming and likable adventure set in Malibu’s perfect weather and geography.
The film follows Mickey Ferrara (played by Petulla), a record producer who hasn’t been able to produce a hit in decades. Like his son says in a voiceover, “he hasn’t done good since people danced funny.” As he goes out on a date with his wife, she asks for a divorce, and things go downhill from there. Ferrara’s trying to reintroduce modern rock as a trending musical genre, but his son Cody needs his dad more than ever. His daughter is also facing a horrific turn of events when she finds out her boyfriend is actually her mom’s new beau. Ferrara can only rely on his bro, a bum who lives on the beach, to get life advice, but perhaps the answers lie in the weird dynamics discovered in the midst of chaos.
Fiction and realism collide in the dramatic layer of the film. Drama and comedy merge well in the script, which allows new characters to be introduced every now and then, but at least they stay secondary and feel gimmicky. Davis trusts his “star” enough to give him the presence to make his conflict compelling and relevant. At some point, Cody’s storyline becomes much more engaging than his father’s, and the depiction of his conflict is actually more impactful than you would think (the sequence where he gets called the F-word is disturbingly real).
The romantic comedy/drama Trust in Love portrays a fading star who believes a lot in himself and rejects the idea of calling a rapper to make the band much more relevant. Of course, this gets mixed with the divorce plot, which gets murky and confusing at some point, but fortunately, Petulla doesn’t play around with the direction of the story. His script is linear, monochromatic, and risk-free. When the film tries too hard to be funny, it loses focus. But given that it takes place in the indie comedy territory, where filmmaker believe they can experiment, Davis understands his limits. Again, Cody’s story is essential to make the film much more believable and honest, and the moment where his story connects with that of his father, and Trust in Love becomes a coming-of-age film, you will connect with the film. In a bizarre turn of events, Ferrara goes too far in a divorce rampage, and the film gets loud and more dramatic.
Performances are pretty decent, especially that of Logan Arditty, who gives life to Cody. The young actor should be given a platform where he can follow up on the depth of his emotionally chaotic character. The film also features fun cameos by Robby Krieger, the guitarist of The Doors, and Steelheart’s vocalist Miljenko Matijević, who provides energy in the studio where no hits are being composed. It appears to be a bit repetitive, but the sequences in the music studio actually relieve the tension brought on by Petulla’s script.
