Sword of Trust
There’s a choice made at the end of “Sword of Trust” that comes out of left field in how the narrative has progressed, but is still a choice that makes sense in the grand scheme of the movie. There’s a twist before that I’m not quite sure I accept, but Lynn Shelton’s comedy is enjoyable enough to overcome what misgivings I have about it.
The film begins in the pawn shop run by Mel (Marc Maron), where a man has come in to sell a guitar and a pair of boots. The man explains the significance of the guitar to Mel, but Mel is practical about the overall value he might be able to fetch for it. The man accepts the offer, and goes about his way. It’s not long after that when we meet Mary (Michaela Watkins) and Cynthia (Jillian Bell), a couple who has just left Cynthia’s grandfather’s house. The grandfather has just passed away, and they went to meet up with the executor of his estate to see what he left them. They were hoping for the house, as they are hoping to move in to it, but they are only left with an old sword, that looks as though it is from the Civil War. With it, they get some documentation, and a letter which spins quite a tale. They take it in to Mel’s shop, and they are about to get into quite a tale of their own.
There’s much more to this movie than it first appears. There’s moments where it is silly and amusing, but there’s also sadness and emotion that comes through. That is especially true with the relationship Mel has with Deirdre, played by Shelton herself. Deirdre and Mel were a couple, until her drug addiction, and his getting clean, derailed their romantic relationship. But the scene where we see the two interact when Deirdre comes into the story makes it clear that he still loves her, and would like to help her however he can. He needs to be able to maintain his distance, though, because he’s seen this before from her. We understand where the empathy comes from, though, as she offers to write a poem for Nathanial, Mel’s employee (played by the dim but sweet Jon Bass), and she’s heartbroken to be in to try and pawn a ring of great emotional significance to her. Mel can only do so much, though, and the way Maron plays the scene is as heartbreaking as he is funny when he finds himself dealing with conspiracy theorists who think the South actually won the Civil War. Wait, what? It’s the part of the story that brings him together with Mary and Cynthia.
“Sword of Trust” feels like a film with a lot of different balls in the air, and it sometimes feels a bit aimless and more silly than it probably needs to be, but Shelton and co-writer Mike O’Brien has a stealth focus on the way people value things, whether they are people, memories, or items. Some people value things based on what they can get from them, while others value things based on what they mean to them. Some people value ideas that come into their head, even if it sounds completely nuts to other people, and others value the way things make them feel, even if they didn’t see it coming. I value the experience of a movie as shaggy and fun as “Sword of Trust,” because it’s a movie that has more going on than we expected it to.
