Betty (Helen Mirren) passes herself off as a nondrinker as she sips from a glass of wine. APPLE BOOKS REVIEW. Directed by Bill Condon (“Kinsey,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Dreamgirls”) and adapted from Nicholas Searle’s 2016 novel, “The Good Liar” has the polish that you would expect from all involved, but little of the sparkle. But during her offscreen time, Betty is — what? “The Good Liar” is a kind of film one wants to love. And he is dangerous: After telling Betty, for instance, that he will meet her for tea at Fortnum & Mason, he absconds to a tube station to commit a murder. (Chia James/Warner Bros. Pictures via … As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life. Variety Owen Gleiberman. Searle nicely paces the dropping of details that explain what made Roy the person he now pretends to be – the expression “nomme de guerre” lies under the story like a landmine – and is the latest novelist to benefit from one of printed fiction’s advantages over visual media: that the same person can easily make more than one appearance under different names. Film Review - The Good Liar This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Ian McKellen, right, and Helen Mirren in a scene from "The Good Liar." 80. See all Audience reviews The Good Liar Quotes. When I sit down to write a review, I generally try to not give away any plot details that might be deemed spoilers, and try to avoid revealing anything that hasn’t been featured in the trailers. “The Good Liar” was directed by Bill Condon, who is best known for such tony adult-oriented projects as “Gods and Monsters,” “Kinsey” and “Mr. Career con artist Roy Courtnay (Sir Ian McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Dame Helen Mirren) on-line. Booklist. Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) is a widow in her 70s who lives in a home full of tasteful pastel furniture in a calmly boring suburb of London. Such old-fashioned genre movies, let alone those starring actors in their 70s and 80s, are hard to find these days. They meet — on a dating website, anyway — during the opening credits. Good movie. (Apart from the romance, he is involved in a plan to bilk shady investors of tens of thousands of pounds.) Such old-fashioned genre movies, let alone those starring actors in their 70s and 80s, are hard to find these days. The Good Liar movie reviews & Metacritic score: Career con artist Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) online. For a blind date, we could hardly do better than Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen. Senior citizen Roy is clearly a con man. Updated: 29 November, 2019 17:05 IST | Johnson Thomas | All those swishy twists and … At the story’s start, octogenarian Roy is aiming for the last big payday of his life, having hooked up on an online dating site with Betty, a wealthy widow whose diligently tended nest-egg is now threatened by a cuckoo. Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 An ageing conman is not who he seems in this fantastically assured debut, ne of those intermittent publishing fusses over a talked-up book by an unknown author occurred last autumn, when a debut novel by Nicholas Searle called. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes. The Good Liar is a 2019 crime thriller film directed and produced by Bill Condon and written by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Searle.It stars Ian McKellen as a career con artist who meets a wealthy widow (Helen Mirren) online, and then discovers that his plan to steal her fortune has unexpected roadblocks.. The real good liar is whoever convinced Mirren and McKellen to class up such thin and arbitrary material. Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen star in producer/director Bill Condon’s psychodramatic character piece, and it’s perhaps a little surprising that they agreed to be involved in something so dark . 1 year ago. Searle’s book is not entirely an espionage tale, and the Le Carré character it most evokes is not so much George Smiley as Rick Pym, the monstrous conman dad from A Perfect Spy. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. One of those intermittent publishing fusses over a talked-up book by an unknown author occurred last autumn, when a debut novel by Nicholas Searle called A Reckoning was lucratively sold in the UK and US after a fight for the rights. That's no lie. Mark Kermode reviews The Good Liar. Ian McKellan and Helen Mirren star for the first time together in The Good Liar, which released its first official trailer on Wednesday. Can Betty really be as compliant as she seems? ... Goodreads is the world's largest site for readers with over 50 million reviews. The Good Liar is less than the sum of its prestigious parts, but Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren keep the proceedings consistently watchable. The film is out November 15th. It winds up as a lunging, heavy-duty revenge thriller, and the more it turns into one, the less it thrills. With Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Russell Tovey, Jim Carter. The narrative language is often plumply old-fashioned: newspapers are “perused” and crowds “disgorged”, and calculations of quantity are qualified by “a tad”. Showtimes & Tickets Showtimes & Tickets Top Rated Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office In Theaters Coming Soon Coming Soon DVD & Blu-ray Releases Release Calendar Movie News India Movie Spotlight. 'The Good Liar': Review By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2019-11-07T11:00:00+00:00 Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren take centre stage in Bill Condon’s conman thriller. "The Good Liar" is just an entertaining movie, except for two quick violent scenes (unless violence entertains you), that was a perfect way to spend this very rainy afternoon. Film Review: ‘The Good Liar’ pairs Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen but seldom lives up to the sheer pleasure of seeing its two leads together, for the first time as co-stars Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. 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