FX’s ‘Trust’ Journeys Into the Strange and Opulent World of J. Paul Getty

Alci Rengifo

A voluptuous woman dives into a swimming pool. A crowd of rich party goers start singing in unison to Pink Floyd’s “Money.” Thus begins “Trust,” FX’s new drama series focusing on oil baron J. Paul Getty and the 1973 kidnapping of his grandson in Rome. With a pilot directed by Danny Boyle, who also serves as executive producer, the show announces itself as a decadent romp re-creating the world of Getty while also working as a series of character studies. Late last year Ridley Scott explored the story of the Getty kidnapping in the film “All the Money in the World,” but “Trust” has a wider canvas to work with. The pilot takes its time in introducing us to the workings of a secluded, opulent home and its family closets, before gearing up for the big kidnapping. It has energy, dark allure and convincingly transports us into another time.

It is 1973 and Donald Sutherland plays the oil giant Getty, who despairs at watching his grown sons drift away from the family business and pursue their own interests. The old man gazes with envy at families like the Kennedys and Rockefellers, who produced ambitious titans in politics and commerce. His kids prefer to pursue film careers and compose music, when they’re not wasting family money on partying and drugs. Getty himself lives like a Sultan in his mansion, keeping company with in-house girlfriends and planning the construction of a Roman villa in California. But just as his son J. Paul Getty Jr. (Michael Esper) decides he should step up and get back into the family business, Getty’s grandson and Paul’s offspring J. Paul Getty III (Harris Dickinson) returns from wandering around Italy. Paul is the very embodiment of the 1970s, with his long hair and jeans. But Getty takes a liking to the seemingly friendly, open young man and even considers elevating him in the inheritance line. Unbeknown to the tycoon however, are Paul’s lingering problems in Rome. He has ratcheted up quite the debt in partying and drugs (a pastime Getty particularly loathes), and is gearing up to ask for some financial help. As Paul starts believe he’s going to be in the clear, he will become the target of a plot that will fully pull in Getty and the family.

Awash in decadent imagery and the ambiance of wealth, “Trust” uses the Getty story to explore the very attitude of power. The pilot is essentially an introduction to the family. We get a whiff of Ancient Rome as Getty lives secluded amid his great halls, rambling about costs while attending to what amounts to a harem. Boyle captures the fascinating rituals of those who can afford to live lavishly. Paul watches in astonishment as Getty simply taps a girlfriend on the shoulder and announces, “20 minutes.” We then see the tycoon in the act, only to realize age does not forgive and later on a doctor injects an experimental drug into his organ to see if that will do the trick. There are also moments of darker humor, like a scene where Getty’s caravan runs over one of his geese and Boyle simply keeps the camera on the smashed entrails, as other fancy cars carry on. An opening scene where someone commits suicide during a ritzy party with a barbecue fork is striking, but also darkly humorous. In another moment Getty welcomes a “new friend from Africa” which happens to be a lion. We see the glee in the baron’s face as his girlfriends scream in terror at the new pet.

Because the pilot works as an immersion into the Getty world, it is the characters who make the whole hour engaging. Sutherland plays Getty with a jaded presence. Unlike Christopher Plummer’s memorable rendition in the Scott movie, Sutherland doesn’t go for total, menacing evil here. Instead his Getty is a proud man who has become suspicious of everyone and has grown to despise weakness. He’s stuck on his conservative ways, even if he keeps his debaucheries private. He shakes with stunned anger when Paul poses nude for a women’s magazine. Yet during the scenes with Paul we get a glimpse of the potential for niceness in the man, but he’s so set in his ways that he will die worshipping strength and capital. When he complains about something he’s more like a man used to getting what he wants, not out of malevolence, but because this is the kind of life he has built up for himself.

The supporting cast is also strong and refined. Silas Carson is quiet intelligence as Getty’s butler Khan, who sees and hears all. Harris Dickinson is convincing as Paul, a pampered hippie of a kid who isn’t unlikeable, just not very wise. By the end when a bag is placed is over his head we can only shake our heads. There is not much of Brendan Fraser as James Fletcher Chase, a Getty confidant, in the pilot. He only appears for one scene. But we can expect him to become a greater presence once the kidnapping storyline takes off.

“Trust” joins the current obsession with dramatizing the world of the elite on television. But because it is a period piece based on a true life persona it never veers into cheap melodrama or exaggeration. The cast delivers sharp performances and the writing gives the plot space to build without simply rushing into the main crisis. More importantly, it works beyond soap opera or thriller. It is a dark and fascinating take on the inner sanctum of a tycoon and the loneliness of having it all.

“Trust” Season 1 premieres March 25 and airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on FX.