Director learns how to `Trust'

"This is not a Molly Ringwald movie," said 32-year-old directorHal Hartley.

That's an understatement. "Trust" finds high school dropoutMaria (Adrienne Shelly) slapping her angry father after announcingthat she's pregnant. He dies of a heart attack minutes later; she'skicked out of the house.

Matthew (Martin Donovan) defines his own young adult angst bystoring a hand grenade in his pocket and smashing a television set atthe local repair shop where he works. "TV," he retorts, beforeputting his boss' head in a vise, "gives you cancer."

The kids are not all right. Maria's mom gets her prettydaughter's boyfriend drunk so he will sleep with her dumpy, divorceddaughter. Matthew's dad is an abusive clean freak who makes himscrub the bathroom four times. Maria tells her boyfriend, a highschool football star, about her pregnancy, and he wants to knock herhead off. "I have my SATs tomorrow," he bellows, "and you want toruin my life."

Matthew and Maria are a natural pair, but neither is willing totrust - for good reason.

"It's almost like you shouldn't trust someone you love. Or thatyou can't love someone who first requires your trust," said Hartley,who also wrote and directed the underground hit "The UnbelievableTruth" (1990). "This is a story about two young people trying tofind a love that doesn't require possession and trying to achieve apeace of mind that doesn't require vengeance." "Trust" is one of the few teenage pregnancy films that addressesabortion; it ends up with Matthew taking Maria to a local clinic.Sitting with 20 twitching, pregnant girls and their pale boyfriends,Maria asks Matthew how he feels. "I feel like smashing things up,"he replies.

"Here is a film about a 17-year-old girl who is pregnant,"Hartley said. "She has to decide to have this baby. Abortion is anatural choice, although most teen films are too afraid to bring itup. To ignore abortion or wash over it would be cheap to theaudience. We deal with it responsibly and articulately."

"A critic said I was dealing with people who are trapped bymiddle-class life and middle-class choices, but that's not true,"Hartley said. "These people are trapped by something missing inthemselves. And you cannot trust until you know yourself. And youcan't know yourself until you go looking."