The Good Liar – Review

The Good Liar

Directed by: Bill Condon

Runtime: 110 minutes… or is it?

The Good Liar is, above all, a character study in how a compulsive liar needs to operate. The most powerful line in this British crime thriller comes from Ian McKellen’s Brian/Roy: “Don’t tell me what I want. I’m going to do what I’m going to do.” For some, lying isn’t a departure from day-to-day ethics. It’s an instinct. It’s as vital as the need to breathe oxygen. These people are dangerous. They may not always try to hurt you, but they are always dangerous, especially when it comes to games of trust and love. Unfortunately, Helen Mirren’s Betty engages in a game of just that.

The film begins with deception. Brian and Estelle meet over the internet. Need I say more? They reveal that they are not Brian and Estelle, but rather Roy and Betty. They begin a courtship. Roy is charming and affable. Betty is cautious but swooned. Betty’s grandson, Steven (Russell Tovey) does not approve. He is very protective.

The less you know about the plot of The Good Liar, the better. Let it unfold itself to you like a tablecloth knitted together out of other tablecloths. The film makes no secret that it is going to contain layers of deception, and revealing elements of the plot would do it no damage, but it is more fun if you discover the intricacies of who Roy and Betty are on your own. The point of the film is how you get to its revelations, which aren’t very shocking. If you pay attention, there is an early line of dialogue that gives a lot a way. It’s not hidden. And that’s the point. The best liars often put truths they don’t care about out front.

The driving force behind the film comes from its performances. Ian McKellen has an amazing ability to both warm a room and make you feel trapped at the same time. There is a scene where he broaches the issue of sex with Betty, and he emits these subtle wheezing noises that are so very human, but make everything he says seem slightly more pathetic. McKellen also has the ability to stand still in a doorway and seem monstrous without doing anything other than think. It’s wonderful when you can see an actor think. Roger Ebert gave the same credit to Samuel L. Jackson in his review of Jackie Brown (1997). I can imagine he would have loved the scene I am talking about.

Helen Mirren is a treasure. There is the most obvious sentence I have typed since “Brian and Estelle meet on the internet.” Mirren makes Betty simultaneously dignified and stupefied in the wake of charming force of nature that “trails his clichés behind him”, as Steven puts it. She’s smart, but doesn’t throw it in people’s faces. Her accomplishments just allow little old her to pay for her car—in cash.

I noticed that The Good Liar was particularly well filmed. The lighting of this film that largely takes place in British suburbs makes everything seem so vivid and idyllic. I kept noticing how “crisp” everything looked. There are some shots that are simply beautiful, for lack of any more nuanced a term. It’s not a film with any particularly gorgeous view, but it paints the best with the brush it has. Bill Condon, who directed the final two films in the Twilight saga, deserves credit for that. Directing Beauty and the Beast (2017) probably didn’t hurt either.

The Good Liar does something I quite admired. It surprised me without shocking me. I discover that the screenwriter for The Good Liar is Jeffrey Hatcher, who wrote on Columbo—and, similarly, you can see how the breadcrumbs are dropped here for us to pick up as it goes along, making even more sense than it did at the start. As I alluded to, some revelations are easy to spot. Others could simply not have been predicted by anyone that hadn’t perused the script earlier. The Good Liar actually finds a way to give away enough of its simple lies that you begin to trust that you know where it’s going. The film itself is a good liar.

George Orwell once said that by fifty, we all have the face we deserve. Some of us can out-lie our age for a bit longer. But the truth has a way of catching up to us. By the end, fair or not, we all get what we deserve. Think about it.