The Good Liar, Marriage Story
A knight and a dame and a promising premise fail to gel on the big screen.
Though billed as a crime thriller, The Good Liar is not thrilling and the only thing that’s verging on criminal is its reliance on Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren to inveigle viewers out of their pension money for a mediocre cinema outing.
Perhaps that’s unfair. No doubt Nicholas Searle’s well-received novel, about two senior citizens whose first date leads them into a tale of deception and intrigue, felt ripe for film treatment. And the author’s own backstory – debut novelist with British intelligence and security-career past writes le Carré-esque bestseller – clearly informs his protagonist’s tale.
The thriller plot aside, it must be said that it’s refreshing to watch older people fall in love on screen. And there’s no doubt McKellen (teaming up with director Bill Condon for a fourth time following Gods and Monsters, Mr Holmes and Beauty and the Beast) being paired with the marvellous Mirren is an attractive prospect. For a moment there, as Roy and Betty
meet in a London bistro and swiftly agree to tell each other “the truth”, as people on first dates often don’t, we feel as engaged and optimistic about their burgeoning affair as they do.
But, soon, Roy is revealed as a con man interested only in Betty’s beigedecorated home and widow’s fortune. What he doesn’t realise is Betty (true to all Mirren’s characters) isn’t going to be pushed over easily.
One problem in a film in which the characters themselves are pretending to be other people is the acting can look a bit patchy. McKellen doesn’t quite nail the distinction between Roy-being-Roy and Roy-being-whoever-he-really-is, and his performance starts to look hammy. In some scenes, the more-assured Mirren looks as if she doesn’t know where to
Roy is soon revealed as a con man interested only in Betty’s beigedecorated home and widow’s fortune.
put herself, but, ever the professional, she continues to simper at Roy’s apparent charm. Some in the audience will be less enamoured when, disappointingly and jarringly, Roy spouts language usually reserved for East End gangsters in a Guy Ritchie film.
Condon, whose past work with McKellen has produced some fine results and who has directed a bit of everything from serious fare to The Twilight Saga, is at best workmanlike here. His adaptation offers a sightseeing tour of London that takes in Fortnum & Mason and Stringfellows stripclub as well as flashbacks from World War II that feel as if they belong in another film.
The book’s plot, which involves more than just octogenarian grifting, might have led readers on an exciting merry dance. Sadly, The Good Liar suffers a similar fate to the McKellen-starring The Da Vinci Code, which was enormously promising as a page-turner but foundered as a film. IN CINEMAS NOW Films are rated out of 5: (abysmal) to (amazing)