Sebastian Stan and Julianne Moore star in tricksy thriller Sharper — review

This pulpy, Manhattan-set thriller about confidence tricks and double crosses is mostly a hoot and so tidily executed it’s only later that you may find yourself questioning the plausibility of its wacky denouement. But, as with a good display of mentalism, it’s best to just relax and enjoy the showmanship and sleights of hand embedded in the subtlety of the performances.

The film (directed by Benjamin Caron) shuffles five main characters around the board like coconut half-shells and asks us to guess who is the grifter and who is the mark. Viewers familiar with the faces of stars Sebastian Stan, Julianne Moore and John Lithgow may be tempted to guess whether they are playing good or bad guys based on characters they’ve played in the past. But that could itself be a trap, especially given how protean each of these actors can be.

Can we even trust that their characters are who they say they are? Is Max (Stan) really a druggie ne’er-do-well? Is his mother Madeline (Moore) actually that devoted to her partner, hedge-fund billionaire Richard Hobbes (Lithgow)? And how are they related to the two more unknown quantities we meet in the first act, shy bookseller Tom (Justice Smith) and PhD student Sandra (Briana Middleton), who fall in love in a montage of upmarket, style-section clichés?

The sharply tailored, neutrally shaded clothes tell their own story here, and are just as full of misdirection and distraction as the daisy-chain structure of the narrative. The word “glamour” originally referred to enchantment and magic — pretty things are not to be trusted — and that’s certainly the case here with this toothsome cast of characters. It’s a shame that the final twist is too silly by half, like a spot of neon polyester in an otherwise immaculate wardrobe.

★★★☆☆

In cinemas in the UK from February 17