The Good Liar: a different sort of date-night movie (contributor: Mary Chaffee)

Biographical note: Mary lives in Vermont and in addition to being a writer, musician and all around bon vivant, she is a good friend from high school. If you have a movie or tv show you would like to write about, let me know and I can send you a contributor’s invite.

When you’re cowering-in-place from COVID with your significant other, every night is date night (theoretically). Consider spending one of them watching The Good Liar, a movie about searching for love online that goes terribly wrong. Ah, but for whom?

Betty (Helen Mirren), a recently widowed woman of a certain age, meets Roy (Ian McKellen) on a dating website, and soon he’s charmed his way into her life and her spare bedroom. All the alarm bells start to go off – what is she thinking, this well-off, trusting older lady? It’s way too soon. Doesn’t she know it’s a jungle out there?

But wait, there’s more.

I’ll watch anything with Helen Mirren in it, and Ian McKellen is formidable. So even though the plot is a bit clunky, its twists and turns are illuminated by stellar acting. We rented this recent release from Amazon for a mere six bucks, added microwave popcorn and a bottle of Zin. A nice evening…and if nothing else, it’ll make you think twice about relying on the kindness of strangers you meet online.