The Good Liar

Wow, what an acting triumph for two of my favorite actors – Ian McKellan and Helen Mirren.  I am going to sound a little vague because I don’t want to spoil anything.  Roy (Ian McKellan) is a career con man who swindles businessmen with dodgy investments and romances lonely widows out of their pensions.  He decides to bilk a wealthy widow, Betty (Helen Mirren), out of her money by seemingly meeting her randomly on a senior dating site.  They hit it off and slowly develop close feelings for each other.  She lets him stay in her home, and they even take a trip to Germany together.  Betty’s grandson begins to suspect that his mother’s beau isn’t all he seems to be, but she won’t hear anything negative about him.  Roy has an actual partner in crime, who is played by Jim Carter (Mr. Carson on Downton Abbey) who, as you can imagine, is playing a character as far removed from the honorable butler as can be.  There are a lot of twists and turns in this story, but I won’t go into them.  That would be telling!  But there are some fine performances all around.  What else could you expect?  Between the three of them, they have a combined age of 225.  That is a lot of experience and it really shows!  I am not sure this would be appeal to people under forty, but only because the main characters are in their 70s and 80s.  That is too bad, because they will  be missing quite a treat!