Caution: Probable SPOILERS
As a longtime fan of Jeremy Sisto and Eric Michael Cole (I've loved them ever since I saw them together in WHITE SQUALL), I've waited a LONG LONG TIME to see Trash, the highly personal debut from first time director Mark Anthony Galluzzo, and I have to say that this movie was well worth the 3 year wait. This movie is a good choice for the millions who loved STAND BY ME and THE OUTSIDERS. This movie deserved to be in theatres and deserved a lot more attention than it got from the mainstream crowd, but in the independent festivals, it reigned quietly and garnered several awards, and maybe it's better this way. I thought the production was very authentic, rough, gritty, rusty, and for good purpose. The bluesy, rockabilly music by unknown artists was beautiful and very Southern, reminded me of the movie "Sounder". The love and devotion in Galluzzo's directing style reminds me of Francis Ford Coppolla's direction of The Outsiders...lots of strange and wonderful camera angles that added to the experience of viewing it. This is obviously a story that Galluzzo has lived himself, a touching story that needed to be told.
The movie begins when four long time friends in Ocala, Florida go hunting and one of them loses his life in a tragic accident. The story spans over a few weeks, and the surviving friends are doing their best to adjust.
Eric Michael Cole gave Anthony a realistically stoic quality as he struggled to keep the pain buried deep down. That was Anthony's way of dealing with the death of Garrett. Sonny James dealt with the pain a completely different and equally realistic way. I was once again astounded by Jeremy Sisto. Yet another unforgettable character brought fully to life. It's not often that I could be so disgusted with a character yet understand and sympathize so much at the same time. And Jaime Pressley, who I thought was wayyy to physically attractive for a role in any serious film, has won my respect with her compassionate, delicate portrayal of CJ Callum, a girl who has a lot more than Anthony financially, but cares very much for Anthony and has nothing snooty or condescending to say about him and his "hick" friends. Grace Zabriskie plays Anthony's loving, caring mother who works hard every night cleaning buildings and houses and who comes home exhausted in the mornings.
Early on, it's easy to see Anthony is a bit luckier than Sonny, who lives with his unloving mother and his abusive father. It's also easy to see that if Sonny'slife doesn't improve, he will end up turning into his father. Healready likes to drink, and he already has a terrible temper that getshim into brawls on the high school campus, and he's taking Garrett's death very hard.
This movie won't work for everyone, that proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by some of the reviews here on this site. But I think that many will end up loving this film. It's a film for people who loves stories about people. It's a film that really hasn't been made before and depicts a group of American people who are virtually ignored as of yet: white people living in abject poverty, without the means to make their lives better, most without even a chance given to them to make things better. Anthony DeMarie stumbles upon a "chance"; his teacher sends a short story he wrote in to a contest and he wins a scholarship. He can get out, and he is encouraged to do so by the school principal (Veronica Cartwright), but something weighs heavily on Anthony's mind, and that is Garrett's death and the way it has affected himself and Sonny. Anthony shrinks deeper into himself and Sonny becomes angrier, more violent and more unstable as the weeks pass. After a succession of violent crimes, it's easy to see that Sonny is semi-suicidal, screaming for help, and Anthony is convinced that unless he can get Sonny away from this miserable life, Sonny will die...by his own hand or someone else's. He knows Sonny is worth something because he knows the other side to Sonny, the Sonny that is starving half the time, the Sonny that hands over all his money from his job as a mechanic to his sister Jackie to help support her two young children and then gets beaten for it by their dad, the Sonny that helps Anthony and his mom with the rent and the groceries now and then. The farther you get into the movie, the deeper the understanding of this relationship between Anthony and Sonny. They really see themselves as brothers and depend on each other a great deal.
Anthony asks Sonny to take the SATs and to come with him to college. Sonny agrees but sadly, he plots a foolish scheme to get them some money to run away with. Then he ends up in jail facing serious charges and their short lived dream is over.
In spite of the violence, the many uses of profanity and one brief scene of sexuality, in spite of what it appears to be on the outside, TRASH isn't some simple, shallow story about hell-raisers having a good time, living in the fast lane, dying young and all that crap. Otherwise I would have hated it. It's rather an intricate portrait of the fiercely adhesive bond of friendship between two boys, and all of the hopes and heartaches within that bond.
