'The Perfect Liar' follows trendy themes of class inequality, but how well does it succeed? Find out in our review.

Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark have made a satire on class inequality during the Spanish flu pandemic raging at the beginning of the 20th century. The plot centers on the confrontation between a crooked chef, Floyd Monk (Peter Sarsgaard), and his employer, a famous journalist with political ambitions, Jay Horton (Billy Magnussen). Did the film manage to uphold the standard set by the likes of Bong Joon-ho and others, and does it need to?

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Open material

You can always line up films that explore a common theme. They are like a collection of elephants on a shelf: all have big ears, four legs, and a trunk (and not always even that), but each has its own story.

'The Perfect Liar' is definitely not an elephant in a china shop, although it quite primitively yet charmingly shows the gap between the poor and the rich, between a pawn and a queen. And in this chess game, the pawn quickly becomes a queen.

This is facilitated by the forced lockdown situation, in which the seemingly progressive rich man Horton simply has nowhere to go. Billy Magnussen's character here is just as vile as in the relatively recent 'Road House', if not worse: in 'Coup!' (the original title of the film), Horton turns out to be a two-faced coward who writes fake liberal news supposedly from the front lines while hiding in a luxurious mansion on an island. And even so, the character initially does not repel the viewer, although with each plot twist he adds bones to his cannibal necklace, simultaneously convincing himself and others that he is a vegetarian.

And what about Floyd Monk? The opening scene of the film immediately makes it clear that he is quite a rogue, whose charms almost no one can resist. And so it turns out that Monk effortlessly makes almost all the inhabitants of the rich estate fall in love with him, along with the audience. The setting and mannerisms of Jack Sparrow, plus the charm of the character and Sarsgaard himself, leave Horton no chance to win this fight.

Sarah Gadon, who played not only the role of Jay Horton's wife but also his moral compass, which he unfortunately does not follow, managed to show an interesting female character. Like Monk and Horton, she also has a hidden side. And if the chef turns out to be the most striking, then the wife of the real thief cannot resist the charm of the former.

Of course, it is clear whose side the authors are on and whom they sympathize with. However, there is no justice in this world, as the ending of 'The Perfect Liar' eloquently tells, once again turning everything upside down, but that is the real irony of the film, which carries the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes.

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