Run and the Paradox of Trust
The moral case for why you want to examine who you trust and why through the prism of the Netflix movie 'Run'.
Why do you trust people?
That sounds like a rhetorical question but it's a good idea to actually put some thought into why you trust people and how you decide who is worthy of it. Otherwise how would you know that someone is trustworthy? Is it an easy and straight forward calculation based on what you know or is it more of an instinct? Where do you draw the line between worthy of trust and unworthy? What happens when someone crosses that line?
Run in a lot of ways is all about that idea. Usually the people you trust the most are the family you've known your whole life. They're the people you turn to when everything goes wrong. It's your family who are most likely to take you in and provide safety and security when you need it most. They're also the people whose betrayal hurts more than anything if you find out they crossed the line. How much it hurts depends on how far the betrayal goes back into your history.
People have trouble being completely honest and usually keep things from people. Some level of betrayal is inevitable, no matter how good a person you are or what the reason is for keeping things from others. If what you keep from them is massive though, then a serious decision has to be made by the person who's been betrayed. Can you still trust them? Would you still spend time with them even with the pain and suffering they've caused?
And if not, how far would you go to get away from that person?
The main character of Run, Chloe, as played by Kiera Allen, has to confront this very idea. Someone very close to her has betrayed her and made her question everything and everyone she ever knew. What's so powerful about Run is not necessarily the betrayal and what has caused the rift between her and the person she trusts. But how she comes to terms with that. She has to go to great lengths to come to terms with the things she learns and what it means for her and her life going forward.
How she struggles to escape and the pain she's going through emotionally are in many ways mirror images of each other. As a viewer, you struggle to watch Chloe's journey from sweet and trusting young woman into someone who can't trust for sure anyone and anything around her. You can't help but feel your skin crawl as more and more uncertainty dawns on Chloe. It's an incredibly psychologically difficult movie to watch.
Many horror movies focus on the scares and actual physical torture characters go through. There are aspects of that in the movie for sure. But in the case of Run, it's learning the truth along with Chloe and the slow reveal of the various layers of deceit and betrayal which are at the heart of what makes Run such a worthy movie in the genre of psychological horror.
Be sure to check it out on Hulu in America and Netflix in Canada as soon as you can.
Finally, it would be really great if you could share this article with other people on social media.
In addition, I would love it if you’d subscribe, whether it’s the free version or the paid version doesn’t matter, it’s going to mean a lot.