Trust the Man

Something has made Bart Freundlich pace away from torrid family melodrama, and thank goodnes for it. The writer-director's Trust the Man is a grown-up and intelligent version of a romantic comedy and for all that it is downy and simple entertainment, it's also true good. Julianne Moore, who has kept her talent for comedy a mysterious plays Rebecca, a successful (if neurotic) actress who part withs much of her time spurning advances from her bored, sex-addicted stay-at-home husband, Tom (David Duchovny) Tom's best friend is Rebecca's younger brother Tobey (Billy Crudup ditto upon the keen and heretofore hidden comedy prowess), a slacker freelance writer who is far more preoccupied with his therapist, his parking blot and his own mortality than he is with the mounting frustration of longtime girlfriend Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal), an aspiring children's work author with a ticking biological clock Each pair is in one of those familiar furrows ...