Home Cinema Review - The Good Liar (15)

Seems like you've had quite a past, Roy.

The Gist: Wealthy suburban widow Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) takes to online dating, through which she meets the charming and self-effacing Roy (Ian McKellen). Her son Stephen (Russell Tovey) takes a dim view of the pair's developing friendship with - we quickly see - good reason. Roy is a practised con-artist with dark criminal connections and an eye to Betty's fortune. She seems clueless to his wiles, getting ever more tightly drawn in by his clever machinations. But for all this woman's good nature, is she the totally naive mark that Roy expects her to be?

The Juice: Directed by experienced helmer Bill Condon and based on a novel by Nicholas Searle, The Good Liar is possessed of numerous strengths and marred by one fatal flaw that prevents it from achieving top-flight thriller status. Chief among its plus-points is that pair of hugely enjoyable central performances. McKellen's conman is no lovable rogue; when not channeling his suave alter-ego, Roy is a deeply unpleasant piece of work - a portrait of creepy malevolence. (The acclaimed theatre knight has a scenery-chewing blast in the role.) Mirren is even more impressive as Betty, providing the apparently gullible widow with depth and nuance that comes into play ever more as the running time progresses. Condon, veteran of big studio fare from Dreamgirls to the live-action Beauty and the Beast (he helped McKellen to Oscar contention via 1999's Gods and Monsters) imbues the whole film with intrigue and suspense, particularly when McKellen is plying his behind-the-scenes criminality or homing in on his financial prize. The early acts get commendably close to the Hitchcockian tension to which the film so clearly aspires. 

What a pity then that the later revelations fail to tie the plot together satisfactorily. Don't get me wrong - it all makes sense, but the truth behind all the story's secrets and lies isn't hidden in plain sight. There isn't the 'Yes, of course!' moment of the best con dramas, because the reality is left-field unguessable. The final act has tension as the stakes increase for Mirren's character, but you're still left with a sense of 'Where did that all come from?'

The Judgement: 6/10. More than worth watching for Sir Ian and Dame Helen, and for the nicely sustained tension of the first two thirds, this is ultimately a solid thriller rather the truly delicious one it was shaping up to be. You can't enjoy a plot's ingenious clockwork Knives Out-style, if the key piece exists so firmly off-screen. You'll see what I mean when you watch it. Just keep your expectations in check and enjoy what's there for the enjoying. It's this pair after all.