Sword of Trust movie review & film summary (2019)

Movies like this rarely get a theatrical release anymore, partly because the industry has trained people only to leave their homes for gigantic movies based on very old commercial properties, but also because so many of the virtues showcased here have become subsumed within certain kinds of TV. Among the latter was Netflix's women's pro-wrestling series "GLOW," which gave Maron, an actor-musician-writer-podcast host and cult figure in his own right, a mainstream platform where he could reinvent himself as a hip yet curmudgeonly character actor. Warm but never pandering, he's turned into the sort of performer you're always happy to see, and he's thankfully all over this project.

Not coincidentally, "Sword of Trust" is directed by filmmaker-actor Lynn Shelton, a TV and movie switch-hitter who oversaw four strong episodes of "GLOW." Shelton also has a supporting role here as Deirdre, the ex-girlfriend of Maron's character, a perpetually backsliding ex-junkie who reminds Mel of a time when they lived lives of pure chaos. Shelton's specialty is character-driven comedy that favors odd pauses, suspicious euphemisms, and realistic conversational speed bumps—the sort of movie where you can't be sure how much of the dialogue is being performed word-for-word from a worked-over script and how much was improvised during rehearsals, or in-the-moment. 

"Sword of Trust" feels the need to include a certain amount of rote wacky shenanigans and laboriously repeated bits of comic business (including the sellers trying to convince possible buyers that they share their conspiratorial worldview—why would this be necessary when you're merely selling an object?). But on the plus side, you get to see Mel during a meeting with a potential buyer and Bell's Cynthia, joining a cynical attempt to make the buyer feel understood, repeating a litany of indignities suffered by Confederate soldiers at the battle of Chicken Fist: "Cholera...Chlamydia....Deer ticks."

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46srqiqlGK8p3nTq6ysrF1nfXKF