Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and a breakout Briana Middleton star in a handsomely mounted — and sometimes predictable — con artist drama.
The opening credit of Benjamin Caron’s handsomely mounted — and sometimes terribly predictable — con artist drama “Sharper” inform us all we have to learn about what’s coming. They’re slick, somewhat imply, and undoubtedly sort of foolish. In truth, “credit” is simply too beneficiant a time period, as a result of Caron opens his characteristic movie debut with a single phrase: “Sharper.” Flash to its textbook definition, splendidly easy in its data: “one who lives by their wits.”
Isn’t that everyone? Not like this, not like these folks. God, you’d hope to not be like these folks.
Based mostly on Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka’s Blacklist script, “Shaper” slices and dices a traditional con story and refashions it as its personal sort of whodunit, one the place everyone seems to be some extent of responsible or culpable or simply rattling deserving of being tricked, and delights in piling on the simply plain imply twists for the hell of it. Advised backwards (till it’s not) and divided into chapters named for specific characters (till it’s actually nearly all of them), “Sharper” isn’t almost as sensible because it want to imagine it’s, however for almost two hours, it should hold audiences on their toes.
Sadly, the much less that viewers is aware of about “Sharper” moving into, the higher. Even billing the movie as a con artist drama with a stacked solid — Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, John Lithgow, and a breakout Briana Middleton — will encourage viewers to maintain their hackles up all through, continuously questioning simply who’s conning who (and the way and why, and many others.). Let that go, should you can.
Caron makes an attempt simply that with the movie’s first chapter (“TOM”), which introduces us to a mild-mannered e book retailer supervisor (Smith) whose life is upended by the arrival of a fairly PhD pupil (Middleton) with a style for the very books he loves essentially the most (“Jane Eyre,” considered one of many off-kilter particulars that don’t fairly match these characters). Quickly, Caron — an skilled tv director, from “Andor” to “The Crown” and “Sherlock” — is lavishing on a darling NYC-set romance, as Tom and Sandra develop nearer by means of their love of books and shared childhood traumas.
“Sharper”
Apple Authentic Movies, A24
All of that’s interrupted when Sandra’s unseen brother — her solely dwelling relative! — begins sniffing round for cash to bail him out of a shady scenario. And wouldn’t you realize it, mild-mannered e book retailer supervisor Tom simply so occurs to have a fats belief fund, one he’s desirous to confide in assist his girl love. Who’s conning who? Effectively, you possibly can guess, however “Sharper” has a couple of extra tips up its sleeve, zipping again in time to make clear how Sandra obtained concerned with this nefarious scheme, care of profession criminals Max (Stan) and Madeline (Moore).
The methods wherein these 4 — plus Lithgow as a Manhattan billionaire that Madeline has set her sights on — intersect is never stunning, however the methods wherein Gatewood and Tanaka select to toss them collectively could be compelling. Sandra and Max randomly meet at a bar, the place he alleges he “sees” one thing in her method that makes him assume she may make a great accomplice, whereas we by no means get the total backstory on Max and Madeline. “Sharper” is all concerning the battle between what we see and what we don’t see, what we are able to’t probably know, and the varied ranges of knowledge the script doles out bolsters that theme.
Julianne Moore in “Sharper”
screenshot/AppleTV+
If solely the remainder of it was so, nicely, sharp. As “Sharper” pulls again by means of time to unbraid its many tangled connections, eagle-eyed viewers will probably spot the tells from a mile away. And the moments that don’t essentially really feel earned? They’re papered over with Steven Soderbergh-style flashbacks, flash-sideways, winks to whole occasions that we couldn’t probably have identified about till they had been laid out earlier than us, the complete rip-off, only a tick-tock to-do listing of dangerous folks behaving very badly certainly.
However, like all good scams, “Sharper” a minimum of boasts the trimmings of a a lot finer affair (as Max tells Sandra, he’s going to show her methods to “give the impression” of being another person), and Caron’s movie usually gives the look of being a extra slick outing, however typically, that look is sweet sufficient. Stellar appearing from every star — particularly Middleton, who pulls off an actual high-wire act within the movie’s first two, very completely different chapters — elevate the bar on the complete movie, and on-location filming in New York Metropolis provides actual texture to an image that’s actually all about appearances.
You may know the place that is all going, however rattling should you received’t benefit from the wild journey there.
Grade: B-
An Apple Authentic Movies and A24 launch, “Sharper” will hit choose theaters on Friday, February 10, and can begin streaming on AppleTV+ on Friday, February 17.
