Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sharper’ on Apple TV+, a Con Artist Saga That Lives to Pull the Rug Out From Under You

Sharper (now on Apple TV+) is a classic grifter/con artist thriller with both hands firmly on one end of the rug, ready to yank. Which is to say, I’ll tread lightly here. Speak vaguely. Be purposely ambiguous. In fact, although I promise not to spoil anything here, the film might be best enjoyed without knowing a damn thing about it first – beyond the boilerplate stuff, e.g., it’s the directorial debut of Benjamin Caron and it stars Sebastian Stan, Julianne Moore, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton and John Lithgow. So perhaps it’s best if you stop reading and go watch it now. I’ll wait… [Jeopardy theme song plays]… back now? Great. Now let’s get into whether this movie is any good or not.

SHARPER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The movie kinda throws down the gauntlet right from the start, giving us a title card defining its own title as “one who lives by their wits.” Then, another title card, which simply reads, “TOM.” Tom (Smith) is a bookshop clerk. No, actually, he manages it. Maybe does more than manage it but let’s not get hung up on that right now because an attractive woman walks in and the lighting in the bookshop is so MOOD it seems terrible for reading a book, but absolutely ideal for asking an attractive woman out to dinner. Which Tom does. Sandra (Middleton) initially declines but comes back later and says she changed her mind and the next thing you know they’re smooching and participating in a tastefully directed and edited falling-in-love montage. It’s all very sweet and like something from a movie that isn’t eventually about people deceiving the living shit out of each other.

We learn a few things about these two. Sandra is a grad student and she and her brother were orphaned young. Tom’s on the other side of a bout with depression, and the reason they always hang out at her apartment is because he lives with his dad, who is ill, and his dad’s new wife, so everything’s awkward there. A few weeks have gone by and one night there’s a ruckus in the hallway outside Sandra’s place. It’s her brother, she says. He’s in trouble, she says. With bookies or whoever. Like, $350k-in-debt deep-ass trouble. And it turns out Tom is secretly rich. Like, can-go-withdraw-$350k-right-now secretly rich. She resists and he insists and he hands Sandra a duffel bag full of cash. “I love you,” he says, and she replies, “I’m so sorry about all this,” and then she doesn’t show up for dinner – or anything else, for that matter.

So she disappears, but not from the movie, because the next title card reads, “SANDRA.” And in this chapter, we learn about her, and how she meets Max (Stan), who gets his own title card that reads, “MAX,” and that chapter introduces us to Madeline (Moore), who lives in an ultra-beyond-swank Manhattan apartment belonging to her S.O. Richard (Lithgow), but only Madeline gets her own title card reading – well, you know what it reads. Further plot summarization would betray my no-spoiler promise so I’ll just mention a few amusing things I observed: An apartment with the longest couch I’ve ever seen, a highly enjoyable sequence set to Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry,’ the Stan character coolly saying “I don’t watch movies – they’re a waste of time,” and possibly one rug-yank too many.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Probably something that found Julia Roberts and/or Clive Owen regularly exchanging witty barbs and/or breaking hearts. (I think that was Duplicity, and duplicity is pretty much a main character in Sharper.) Or maybe just stuff along the lines of The Grifters, Catch Me If You Can and American Hustle.

Performance Worth Watching: Moore is as juicy as ever playing a woman who, well, without revealing too much, let’s just say she’s [REDACTED] and [ALSO REDACTED]. Ah, damn. Might just have to figure out for yourself why she’s so fun to watch here. 

Memorable Dialogue: The young lovers, just before they kiss:

Sandra: Is this real?

Tom: This is real.

Ron Howard narrator voice: It wasn’t real.

Sex and Skin: Nada.

Our Take: Funny, how the scammers in the movie always get greedy and go one step too far with their endeavors, and the writers of Sharper mirror that same behavior. But one saw-it-coming-a-mile-away third-act development doesn’t torpedo what was to that point an entertaining film with an engrossing plot of neatly composed, interlocking, overlapping pieces. Sure, it’s somewhat short on character. It’s wound tight tonally (when Caron loosens the reins a little, a good film becomes a lively one). And its seemingly purposeful attempt to be apolitical escapism feels like a missed opportunity to enrich itself with some subtext. 

But there are many pleasures to be had here, in its clever construction, and the way it puts our rooting interests on a leash and jerks them around. It’s Soderberghian and Mametesque in a way that marries crisp dialogue to curlicue plotting, harkening back to mid-budget films for adults from the late ’90s or early ’00s. Sharper plays it cool, almost to a fault, stylish and emotionally detached, but not too detached, allowing enough earnestness into a story about slicksters without spoiling its amoral sauciness. 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Sometimes you watch a movie like Sharper and feel double-crossed. Duped. Hornswoggled. But not this one. Even in its inherent flimsiness, it’s slick, tight and entertaining.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.