The Good Liar

The Good Liar (2019) is the film in which Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren finally appeared together. Both have careers spanning more than sixty years and had never shared a film until this one. Roy is an old man who has spent his life conning people. He meets Betty through a dating site. She is newly widowed, comfortable, and trusting. Roy's plan is obvious. The first half moves like a con story. Then the second half goes somewhere else entirely, and the root of the whole thing turns out to reach back to the Second World War. We are not describing that turn here. That structure is both the film's strength and its weakness. The reveal carries real weight, but the explanation runs long and spells everything out. The two performances are reason enough. McKellen uses courtesy as a weapon, and Mirren deliberately fades into the background for the first half. It is adapted from Nicholas Searle's novel. It runs 109 minutes. Good for: con stories, performance driven films, and thrillers. Less good for: there is a harsh wartime sequence and sexual violence in the second half, and anyone who finds the ending over explained has a case.