Sword of Trust                                   4 stars

One of the most original comedies of the year has to be Sword of Trust by writer director Lynn Shelton.  This is a low budget character driven comedy based on a most unusual premise.  Cynthia and Mary (Jillian Bell and Michaela Watkins), a married lesbian couple arrive at Cynthia’s grandfather’s house who has recently passed away.  They are there to collect on Cynthia’s inheritance, but she is alarmed to find out that the only thing left to her is an antique Union sword from the Civil War that her grandfather treasured.  Accompanying the sword are documents “authenticating” it as proof that it was surrendered by a Union general or Field marshal? To the Confederate army making it proof that in truth the South had won the Civil War.  Not being sure what they have, the couple then take the sword to a local pawn shop in Birmingham, Alabama to see what they can get for it.  The owner of the pawn shop, Mel (country song writer Marc Maron) is not too impressed by the story and dismisses them.  His assistant, Nathaniel (Jon Bass) then looks on line and discovers that there are people who believe this “truth” and are willing to pay big bucks for artifacts that prove that the South actually did win the Civil War.  This group of four then decides to put their differences aside and pursue a transaction with this racist redneck organization and see where it takes them.  To do this they have to be locked up in the back of a truck driven by a guy named “Hog Jaws”. All of this is done in a very comedic way, but the story about the sword is really just a mechanism to bring these people together and allow us to hear their stories of broken relationships and damaged souls.  We get the feeling that these are real people that have gone through difficult times.  Two other films I have seen by Shelton, Your Sister’s Sister and Laggies do much the same kind of thing.  But it’s also a lot of fun to see how the adventure with the sword and the redneck ranch turn out.