The Good Liar

Betty and Roy, two lusty seniors, meet via a dating portal. They get along immediately and Roy soon moves in with Betty. His intentions, however, are anything but honourable. Roy is a conman and he has set his sights on the generous widow’s considerable fortune. What he doesn’t know is that the former Oxford history don has researched his past … Director Bill Condon calls his film, based on the eponymous novel by Nicholas Searle, “a thriller with a Hitchcockian feel, weaving in elements of mystery, crime, and a human drama”. As pari passu adversaries, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, who have been seen on stage together, engage in a fascinating cat-and-mouse game. Their mutually ambiguous duel is a thespian triumph, with Helen Mirren giving a tour-de-force performance as the purported victim who is not as naïve as she seems. Among all the lies and deceptions lurks a core of establishing historical truth, so The Good Liar, with its constant feints and slight of hand, is also a treatise on the cathartic power of acting.