Erivo powerful in trailer for “Harriet”
There’s a low-key, lackadaisical charm about “Sword of Trust” that might lead viewers to mistake its modesty for lack of ambition. But there’s virtuosity at work in this beguiling comedy that’s no less impressive for being improvisational, understated and refreshingly self-effacing.
There are no special effects, chase scenes or shootouts in this swift, compressed narrative, which clocks in just under 90 minutes and limits its action mostly to three locations, one of which is the padded back of a moving truck. The explosions in “Sword of Trust” occur by way of chemistry between the film’s four main actors, in their breezy and revealing banter and, in an extraordinary moment in the back of that truck, a breathtaking tonal pivot that sets the film on an entirely different and deeper course.
That moment belongs to the comedian and podcast host Marc Maron, who plays Mel, the owner of a Birmingham, Ala., pawnshop. In a revelatory performance, Maron brings his own smart, acerbic persona to a man who never intended to own a pawnshop. As “Sword of Trust” opens, he is dickering with a customer over what he’ll pay for a vintage guitar and a pair of boots, looking sarcastically askance at his doughy, perennially slack-jawed helper Nathaniel, (Jon Bass), who is engrossed by the conspiracy-theory videos he watches on his laptop.
Mel, clearly, has seen it all, so when Mary and Cynthia (Michaela Watkins and Jillian Bell) come in to sell a 19th-century sword that belonged to Cynthia’s late grandfather, he isn’t particularly impressed. But they also bring in paperwork suggesting that the sword proves the South won the Civil War, a claim that Nathaniel is familiar with from the sites he visits on the internet, where groups of amateur revisionists put out calls for “prover items” to bolster their loopiest theories: “What is this? ‘Antiques Roadshow’ for racists?” Mel exclaims when he sees a typical video.
Soon enough, the foursome are in the back of that truck in an adventure that begins as a moneymaking scheme and promises to become a heroic journey into the heart of white supremacy at its most virulent and addle-minded. “We’re in the brain of that,” Mel exclaims excitedly while they bump along in the truck. “And apparently it’s carpeted,” Cynthia replies, taking in the swatches of brown shag that surround them.
Directed with easygoing assurance by Lynn Shelton from a script she co-wrote with Mike O’Brien, “Sword of Trust” joins such Shelton classics as “Humpday,” “Your Sister’s Sister” and “Laggies,” bursting with the same humor and intelligence as those films and evincing a shrewd eye for casting actors who can spin improvisatory riffs into pithy, observational gold. “Sword of Trust” is a perfect comedy of manners for our post-truth age, when historical consensus has become subject to the same kind of interpretive haggling as the price of a kitschy cream pitcher. In the hands of this gifted ensemble, “Sword of Trust” isn’t content simply to poke fun at the rednecks and rubes who believe in the most outlandish lies, but saves its best laughs for the foibles of the ones doing the ridiculing.
Like all of Shelton’s films, “Sword of Trust” is dependably funny and a showcase for some splendidly nuanced comic turns, but in its final moments it becomes something more: a wistful testament to the people we can’t help loving, the people we love and can’t help, and the crucial work of drawing boundaries between them.
Focus Features released a nearly threeminute trailer for its upcoming Harriet Tubman biopic on Tuesday, ramping up interest in what seems to be a powerful lead performance by Cynthia Erivo.
The “Harriet” trailer begins with Tubman’s escape from slavery, suggesting the film will trace her journey from that point through her valiant venture to lead hundreds of others to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Soon afterward, she encounters a white man on a bridge (Joe Alwyn, the actor who seemed to be everywhere last fall). Instead of winding up in the man’s custody, she pronounces to him that she will “be free or die” and plunges into the rushing waters below.
Tubman, born Araminta Ross, is also seen sitting down with abolitionist William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), who asks her if she would like a different name to represent this new stage in life. He and a character played by Janelle Monáe encourage Tubman’s efforts, but Still at one point reminds her of what she risks.
“I made it this far on my own,” she tells him. “So don’t you tell me what I can’t do.”
The film — directed by Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”), who cowrote the screenplay with Gregory Allen Howard (“Ali,” “Remember the Titans”) — seems likely to earn awards buzz for Erivo, 32, who is an Oscar away from becoming the youngest EGOT recipient. The strategic November release date backs this notion. But news of her casting was met with backlash in the fall, as some found fault with Erivo, who was raised in the United Kingdom and is of Nigerian heritage, playing an iconic American crusader.
Similar complaints had been made in the past regarding Daniel Kaluuya playing a black American in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” or David Oyelowo playing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s “Selma.”
Erivo addressed the “Harriet” backlash in an Instagram post in September, writing that her journey to portraying Tubman had been “long and detailed and one I have not taken lightly.”
“I fought for the role of Celie,” Erivo wrote, referring to her award-winning performance in “The Color Purple” on Broadway, “and spilled blood sweat and tears playing her; the same applies for every role I’ve earned, this will be no different.
“I hope that I do everyone, even those who are in doubt or are upset, proud. I hope to quell your fears, because I understand that is what it is. I cannot tell how protective I am of this woman and her story.”