REVIEW: Trust (S1 E1/10)

Nothing is more fascinating to the TV viewing public than the lives of the fabulously wealthy – particularly when wealth brings not happiness, but misery on a Shakespearean scale. From Dallas and Dynasty to the trials and tribulations of our beloved Royal Family, it’s equally appealing whether it’s outrageous fiction, or, in the case of Trust, outrageous fact.

Certainly the broad landscape of the spectacular disaster that is the real-life Getty family is crying out for dramatic fictionalisation; in fact, it’s already been done in recent movie All The Money In The World, into which Christopher Plummer was drafted to reshoot scenes originally played by the disgraced Kevin Spacey. But with the 10-part Trust, made for Fox TV and now being shown on the BBC, the opportunity is there to rummage around in even darker and dirtier secrets.

Production team Simon Beaufoy, Christian Colson and Danny Boyle, who directs the first three episodes, certainly have previous, having produced that telling examination of class and poverty, Slumdog Millionaire. But Trust opens up so many more of society’s festering wounds, from the irresponsibility of the rich to the complicity of their servants and the side-effects on wider society.

Subtlety is not the key in this colourful dynastic drama. From the title, which plays with the dual meaning of ‘reliability’, and the financial device by which the Gettys accumulated so much tax-free dosh, to the crashingly obvious use of the Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ on the soundtrack, everything’s splattered with significance, like the black swan we see squashed on Getty Senior’s driveway.

It’s 1973, and while Britain suffers endemic strikes, power cuts and flared trousers, billionaire John Paul Getty, played with acerbic wit by an authentically saggy Donald Sutherland, faces a quandary; he’s old – he can hardly get an erection anymore, despite having four spectacular and compliant girlfriends – and he worries that his four useless sons are unable to take over his business. Who loves him the most, he asks? – as if it weren’t an obvious Shakespeare reference, Getty’s biographer Bela von Block (David Bamber) has to explain to us the plot of King Lear. The character of Lady Macbeth is also brought to mind by prime girlfriend Penelope Kittson (Anna Chancellor).

So when his eldest son kills himself, the notoriously penny-pinching Getty – who keeps a note of the cost of his daily newspaper, and has a payphone for house guests – doesn’t know who to trust with his billions. It won’t go to his harem – they’re on fixed contracts. His sons either hate him or his business, or spend all their time on drugs and fast living.

Failed film producer John Paul Getty Jr looks like the best of a bad bunch, but then an unexpected candidate arrives – Junior’s son, youthful John Paul Getty III (Harris Dickinson).

Despite his barefoot hippy ways, lack of decorum, and obvious financial incontinence, John Paul appeals to the elderly tyrant – he asks the right questions about the oil business (which is helpfully explained for us as a spider’s web of tax-free dosh), he takes an interest in expensive art (to the extent of nicking a small Henry Moore sculpture), and he’s keen on the traditional Getty pastime, fast women.

So Getty Senior anoints Jean Paul as his heir, only to have his plans derailed by revelations about the boy’s drug-fuelled, pan-sexual goings on abroad. Banished to Rome, Junior has to face the debts he’s run up with the Mafia, and that’s where the fun begins. You don’t need to know anything about the true events to guess that kidnapping, extortion, betrayal and severed ears are bound to follow. The initial question is whether John Paul is complicit in his own kidnapping, as the closing scene seems to suggest.

Truly, the series is anchored by the towering performance of Donald Sutherland, as a man so unsympathetic, even his faithful butler shows his contempt by sticking his miniature in lion shit; but Harris Dickinson, playing John Paul Junior with all the swagger and sexual allure of a young Jim Morrison, may yet turn out to be the touchstone of its success. There are also delightful supporting roles for Silas Carson as the tightly-wound butler Bullimore, and Michael Esper as oily Jean Paul Junior (and we have yet to meet Hillary Swank as John Paul’s penniless mother Gail, who becomes the go-between with the Mafia, and Brendan Fraser as a cowboy-hatted private detective).

Lushly staged (including scenes shot in Hatfield House), tightly scripted and featuring a powerful if rather predictable contemporary soundtrack, it looks like Trust will be compulsive viewing – and we’re promised some changes of tone and directorial style which will really keep us on our toes. But the plan is to stretch the story of the Gettys over three seasons, and whether we will enjoy the family’s relentlessly self-destructive lives for that long, it’s too early to answer. We’ll have to keep our ear to the ground (ouch).

Chris Jenkins