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Rating: R
Run time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Stars: Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, Russell Tovey
Director: Bill Condon
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier was a lightweight prizefight compared to the acting bout between Helen Mirren, 74, vs. Ian McKellen, 80, in their first film together — the Hitchcock-style mystery The Good Liar, whose director, Bill Condon, won an Oscar for his last McKellen film, Gods and Monsters. The Times of London calls Mirren and McKellen “the new Hepburn and Tracy,” but they're more like a grownup Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Mirren's Betty is a gorgeous retired Oxford prof who's saved up $3.6 million but has no clue how to invest money, nor how to decorate. Her house, in a dull suburb, looks like it got hit by a bland grenade — everything is as drab and impersonal as she is bright and sprightly. Her date Roy (McKellen) says visiting her place is like “being smothered in beige."
But he doesn't say it to her face. When courting Betty, the dashing and ultra-cultured Roy is the epitome of British politeness, with a backspin of wit. He's charmingly open about the little white lies he included in his profile on the Distinctive Dating website, where they met, and jests that he'd thought online dating was “a system for matching the delusional with the hopeless,” aware that she has the same fear. And they both know they're not getting any younger. (At first, the film plays like a grownup rom-com: You've Got Mail, but Not Much Time.)
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