Too Hot to Trust
In honor of Ira Sachs' smoldering PASSAGES
It all started, as it often does, with a tweet. “do you have any actors who are so attractive that it feels somehow personally threatening to you? which prevents you from fully empathizing with their characters?” asked film journalist Lauren Wilford. “I call this ‘too hot to trust’.”
Back in the halcyon days of the avian app’s previous owner, a vigorous discussion began in the replies. It lodged in my head, clearly, as I’m dedicating an entire newsletter to it nearly five years after the original tweet. At one point, the idea was to engage Lauren in a discussion about the term after it took off online to really unpack it together and make a joint list of recommendations. But after some back-and-forth, she respectfully opted out of participation — so now you're stuck with just me opining on it.
The closest analog of an archetype for “too hot to trust” is the femme fatale of film noirs, the (usually blonde) siren who could lure men flirting with the darkness into abandoning their principles. For the purposes of this newsletter, I think it’s far more interesting to focus on men given the lack of a historical precedent. The implication that there’s something sinister underneath male sexuality and smoldering is a bit newer, clashing directly with long-held notions that take their rapacious desire as a given.
I think the rise of the “too hot to trust” male figure has also risen concurrently with the airheaded himbo — think Zac Efron in Neighbors, Chris Hemsworth in Ghostbusters, Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street, and now Ryan Gosling in Barbie. There’s a sense among all of these men that there’s something unnatural about standards of male beauty and sexuality. It’s like a tacit acknowledgment of just how unrealistic those ideals are. For someone to fulfill them, there must be something slightly off about them that earns our mockery or mistrust.
In this period of destabilization around modern masculinity, many filmmakers and storytellers have put the iconography of great actors to chilling, compelling effect. The immediate impetus for this newsletter is Ira Sachs’ sizzling Passages, which follows the covetous film director Tomas (Franz Rogowski) as he strays from his husband (Ben Whishaw) to follow the intense desire for a female schoolteacher (Adèle Exarchopoulos) he meets on a dance floor.
Film writer Kyle Turner got a good chuckle out of me when he remarked about the film on Letterboxd, “Is this person hot enough to justify their horrible behavior?: the movie.” I think that’s certainly one way to read the film, but I was riveted by Sachs’ probing of the very nature of desire itself. What is it about Tomas that can make people of all genders and sexualities try to fashion themselves into an object of his fancying, even whenever his mercurial moodiness makes him so unpleasant and unreliable? It’s somehow primal and elegant at the same time to watch these three people trying to square the rational thoughts in their heads with the jumble of signals coming from their guts and groins.
If the steamy Passages hasn’t made it to your town yet (and it may well soon given that it just enjoyed Film at Lincoln Center’s highest-grossing weekend of 2023), I’ve put together 10 films that I think embody the ambiguities and anxieties of “too hot to trust.” These films all play masterfully with the scrambled signals of their male stars without dipping into outright objectification or fetishization (with perhaps one notable exception that I’ll be calling out for good reason). Whether seedy or slick, these films sizzle thanks to top-notch male performances willing to call their own appeal into question.
Broadcast News, rental
Maybe a spoiler alert? James L. Brooks’ great dramedy Broadcast News features one of the all-time great love triangles, although it’s really almost a quadrangle given that the passionate career interests of news producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) are big enough to be a person in their own right. Her alliances sway between the mainstay of the newsroom, the nice but nebbish Aaron (Albert Brooks), and the new entrant, the cocksure yet compromised Tom (William Hurt). The latter has a face made for TV, so much so that it can’t help but nag Jane that there is something ever so slightly off about him. Watching her go through various stages of resistance as she ponders whether her sinking sensation will prove right is the “too hot to trust?” experience in a nutshell.
Burning, free with ads on Freevee through Amazon
“There are so many Gatsbys in Korea,” laments Yoo Ah-in’s Jong-su in Burning. But it’s really only one that irks him: Steven Yeun’s Ben, a wealthy nouveau riche who won’t give a clear answer to the source of his money. The tension between Eastern and Western values often defines Yeun’s characters, though it’s usually rendered as somewhat of an internal tragedy he must resolve. Here, Ben is all privileged placidity … even as Jong-su grows increasingly unnerved by how his rival’s inexplicable magnetism draws in his childhood crush Hae-mi. It’s fascinating just to watch him simmer on screen, so comfortable in the knowledge he can turn his ability to be anything to anyone to his advantage. The playfulness is powerful.
Fish Tank, Criterion Channel
Admittedly, this is the first “too hot to trust” movie that I thought of. I’ve raved at length about Fish Tank on here before as a superlative downer coming-of-age movie, but let us now praise Michael Fassbender as the harbinger of doom. This premiered at the same Cannes Film Festival as Inglourious Basterds, and it really put him on the map for many movie lovers. It’s Andrea Arnold, though, who really knew what to do with him. From the moment his character moseys into the frame, clad in nothing but loose-fitting blue jeans that are falling off his slender hips, it’s clear that teenage Mia is absolutely infatuated with him. Arnold keeps her camera locked in lust as the adolescent begins to quietly yearn for her mom’s new boyfriends. Fassbender’s not shy about returning the flirtatiousness with the camera, either — which makes the film all the more devastating once the reality of his predation sets in.
The Guest, rental
The party line of this newsletter remains summed up by this Hunter Harris tweet: “dan stevens wants what nicholas hoult has.” Having said that, Dan Stevens does dial up the smolder to the maximum in The Guest as an alleged Afghanistan vet who ingratiates himself in the family home of a fallen soldier he says he knew. It works oddly well as his character David becomes the obvious suspect in a serious of deaths coinciding with his arrival. Stevens makes for an excellent cipher in this thriller that plays like something of a Hitchcock caper drenched in the occasional burst of Technicolor lighting. (For the fans who know Hitch’s deeper cuts, think Shadow of a Doubt.)
Hard Candy, free with ads on Freevee through Amazon
Patrick Wilson: what a varied, versatile, vulnerable performer who does not get nearly enough credit for his talents! He does a lot with a thankless and transgressive part in Hard Candy playing a suspected sex predator lured into a trap by an Internet-era Little Red Riding Hood (Elliot Page). Talky though this largely single-location thriller might be, taut it remains throughout as a man who loudly proclaims his innocence faces true torture over his intentions and actions.
Nightmare Alley, rental
I think Guillermo del Toro’s take on Nightmare Alley makes for a particularly rich “too hot to trust” text. The film actually does pit Bradley Cooper’s cunning carny con man Stan Carlisle against a classic femme fatale in Cate Blanchett’s femme fatale Dr. Lilith Ritter. I can take or leave some of the spectacularly staged circus scenes in the first half of the film, but it’s really cooking in the back half as Stan and Ritter engage in their duplicitous pas de deux. Each recognizes their attractiveness as an Achilles heel for others, and their battle of wits and wills provides the ultimate challenge to the limits of Stan’s smarm.
A Single Man, free with ads on Freevee through Amazon
A bit of a plot twist: the “too hot to trust” in A Single Man is not the protagonist but the supporting character Kenny (played by newsletter cause célèbre Nicholas Hoult). On the last day of widowed professor George Falconer’s life, this beguiling student sitting in his seminar pops out from the crowd. It certainly helps that director Tom Ford shoots Kenny as some kind of angelic presence, with his bright white jumper emanating the glow of a halo. But George struggles to see any good in the world and thus doubts Kenny’s advances are sincere. Hoult navigates the tricky terrain deftly, careful not to flatten his character into a mere plot device. With each line, he provides an invitation to live and love that feels too good to be true. It’s only natural that we, like George, should come to question him for a long while.
Stranger by the Lake, rental
Full disclosure: Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake does feature unsimulated sex scenes, though the actors used body doubles for these acts of intimacy between their characters. But they’re nude for the majority of the movie because, well, it’s only natural at a French nude beach that serves as a cruising destination for gay men. The athletically built Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) has no trouble picking up or befriending guys. Yet he’s haunted by the beach’s alpha Michel (Christophe Paou), whose attention he salivates for and thus solicits. After watching him cycle through other men, Franck excitedly awaits his own turn — and is unable to resist the pull of the mysterious, magnetic Michel even when his domineering ways become quite dangerous. This explicit, exquisite thriller recalls something Hitchcockian as Franck dances with the devil in the hopes of getting his rocks off.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Paramount+
Two for the price of one! Who is really “too hot to trust” in The Talented Mr. Ripley: Jude Law’s spoiled scion Dickie Greenleaf, or Matt Damon’s dorky but devious upper-crust aspirant Tom Ripley? It’s both to some extent, though it’s of course Ripley who wins out over time. The closeted, covetous outsider grows in power as he learns to code-switch and play by the rules of the wealthy elite. What he’ll do to maintain what he’s stolen makes for a compulsively watchable psychological thriller. (A double feature idea: watch this with Purple Noon, a French-language adaptation of the same Patricia Highsmith novel starring another THTT favorite, Alain Delon.)
True Things, Hulu
If you aren’t familiar with British actor Tom Burke, True Things might be the perfect introduction to his commanding screen presence. How else to explain the instant believability of Ruth Wilson’s working woman Kate being willing to risk it all after a chance sexual encounter with this sleazy, slimy stranger? Nothing about Burke’s bleach-blond skeeze should be alluring. And yet his committed gravitas completely sells the character’s appeal to an outside observer. In some ways, True Things is both the most and least obvious “too hot to trust” text of the ten here as the nature of attraction makes both total sense and none at all.
You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.
Something about Edith Piaf must be in the air this summer … this remix of her song “La Foule” from Talk to Me slaps.
Happy 250th episode to the glorious This Had Oscar Buzz podcast! I gladly joined their new Patreon today and think you ought to consider it, too. (GREAT movie for their 250th episode this week.)
I think there are nuances between concept and execution, but Adam Kotsko’s “Moralism Is Ruining Cultural Criticism” in The Atlantic is worth mulling.
Did you know the director of Good Burger is now running Paramount Pictures? This Variety cover story is a fascinating look at a man who straddles the divide between artistry and industry during Hot Labor Summer.
If you’re not over Barbenheimer yet, I’d recommend “What Is Greta Gerwig Trying to Tell Us?” and “What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in Oppenheimer?” in Vulture.
For Decider, I said stream it to Poisoned as well as Zom 100 and skip it to Missing (all on Netflix). I also gave a hearty “stream it” recommendation to Enys Men (now on Hulu), but you should already know this given my rave earlier this year back when I interviewed director Mark Jenkin.
Subscribers also got the full “critics vs. influencers” piece in their inboxes.
Critics vs. Influencers: Who You Got?
“‘Real’ critics — my colleagues in print, for whom films and film reviewing are just a little more complex — may think that [these other people] have no more in common with serious writing than belly dancers do with the Ballet Russe. At their most generous, print critics will say, ‘We’re writers; they’re performers.’”
You can keep track of all the freelance writing I’ve done this year through this list on Letterboxd.
That’s all for now!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall
I was lucky enough to catch Passages, but I don’t think it will do that much expanding with its awful NC-17 rating. Hopefully Mobi makes it available digitally pretty quick.