Sword of Trust is a 2019 comedy about a woman who inherits an antique sword that was believed by her grandfather to be proof of something that could change history.
So you say you’re looking for something new in your comedy drama, something off the usual beaten path of retread stories designed to be safe. Well, writer and director Lynn Shelton‘s latest is indeed that, a quirky yet touching slice of human oddity that revels in personality. It effortlessly sweeps past the expected in offering up an entertaining little movie experience that makes you believe you know what you’re in for before pulling the rug out from under you.
Running his own pawn shop in Birmingham, Mel (Marc Maron) deals with the daily run of oddballs looking to get cash for scraps, he gone numb to the whole show of it. His only employee is Nathaniel (Jon Bass), a kooky sort of young man hooked on internet videos that are a little off the accepted line of thinking. Meanwhile, Cynthia (Jillian Bell) has arrived in town, along with her partner Mary (Michaela Watkins), believing she’s about to inherit her now deceased grandfather’s home. That’s not happening though, the bank taking possession of it, leaving Cynthia the only thing he ever wanted for her, a Civil War sword, along with a handwritten letter explaining that – even though the reverse has become accepted – the South actually won the war. They take the weapon to Mel, who at first isn’t onboard with the women’s story, the two hard selling the ‘authenticity,’ leading Mel and Nathaniel to do some digging. Soon enough, they’re on a hunt for the truth … and a big payday.
If you have any love for Marc Maron, and you should, this is a movie seemingly tailor made for his style, putting him front and center of a very funny and yet genuinely heartwarming movie. He’s almost hypnotically dry and given something like this to run with, takes it around the track in high fashion. Here’s a guy who’s able to deliver cutting sarcasm in one moment and painful mistrust the next with barely a change in his face. This comes in handy when dealing with characters like Jimmy (Al Elliot), a businessman across the street who visits often and Deirdre (Shelton), a woman who has a past with Mel that clearly pains him. Maron is so good behind the counter in dealing with life, it feels like an audition tape for a possible new series.
This is a smart bit of casting, with the film on a set track but clearly a little loose in allowing these talents to have some play with the dialogue. They are all, including plenty of supporting bits, a bit offbeat but never so far off the rails to lose its traction. However, Maron and Bell are the real draw, the two absolute masters in charge of exactly what Shelton is after, delivering a sharp yet ever-so-subtle take on the wacky world of conspiracies. This keeps Sword of Trust always funny without ever once plotting along the road well traveled.
A majority of the movie is set inside the pawn shop but it eventually shifts to a moving truck where the gang take to the road in trying to make money off a wrinkle in history that has a lot of people believing the ‘truth’ is a masterminded hoax led by elites. Admittedly, you sort of have to be in the neighborhood when it comes to this kind of comedy, but if you are, this is exactly what you’re looking for.