Sharper is an Apple TV thriller from Benjamin Carron, with writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. As simply as I can put it, the story is about the son of a billionaire businessman being conned out of his inheritance and then conning it back. This is a movie that is much more focussed on how the story is told than the story itself. It is split into chapters, jumping around in chronology, each providing the perspective of a different character on the same events. The viewer is constantly misled as to who has the upper hand.
In an opening scene that’s a bit too reminiscent of the first episode of You, Tom falls for a customer visiting his bookstore in New York. The two begin an idyllic romance until Sandy’s brother comes calling, on the run from masses of drug debt. Sandy needs a huge sum of money so save her brother, and Tom reveals that his father is a billionaire business tycoon and will loan her the money she needs. Sandy takes the money and of course, skips town, leaving Tom confused and heartbroken. This betrayal sets up the expectation for every following chapter, with one character being the grifter and the other the mark. Every time you think you’re getting a grasp on what’s going on, the bigger play is revealed, and in this way the story unfolds like Russian nesting dolls.
Sharper spends very little time on characterisation. None of the characters are explored much as individuals because, as grifters, most of their time on screen is spent playing an ingenuine role. They are all completely dishonest, and it becomes clear by the end of the second chapter that there is no one you as an audience can trust. It is exciting to an extent, but makes it difficult to connect with anyone in the story, and I was ultimately unsure who I was expected to be routing for. A lot of what makes a character is their motivation- what he or she is trying to achieve, and when you mask the intentions and purposely mislead the audience as to what your characters motives are, you may be able to generate some dramatic surprise reveals, but what you sacrifice is depth. The individuals in your story become not so much characters as chess pieces used to control a complicated plot. Why I should have empathised with Julienne Moore’s character over Sebastian Stan’s, for example, was completely unclear. Both are generic grifters trying to outplay the others to get ahead themselves. I am unaffected by their successes or failures, and therefore don’t have any emotional response to the story being told.
Even at the conclusion, nobody has won. There is very little sense of catharsis in every character ending up exactly where they started. The grifters are unsuccessful, and Tom pulls off an elaborate trick of his own to win back the inherited fortune that they almost took from him- a fortune he claimed he never wanted in the first place. I suppose Sandy wins, as she betrays Max and Madeline and presumably ends up living happily with Tom and his billions. But again, there’s no reason for the audience to share in this victory as Sandy is just as much a grifter as the other two. ‘You can’t con an honest man’, seems to be the message of the story, yet every character is dishonest to an extent, thus every character gets conned.
Tom comes through as the protagonist, as he is the honest man, but his victory is hollow as he only seems to achieve revenge and ultimately ends up back where he began. I appreciate that to achieve re-equilibrium, to return to the start with something changed, is the goal of any story structure, but given the extent of the confusion and the drama, the return to stasis felt underwhelming.
The cinematography stands out as one of Sharper’s strengths. There are a lot of very stylistic shots, with a focus on light, glass and sharp angles. There are elements of old school New York, almost noir in the way the scenes are presented. I particularly liked the slow tracking shots behind cars as the characters glide from place to place. It called to mind the movie Drive with Ryan Gosling, and they were effective in building tension and drama.
It’s more of an exercise in dramatic writing techniques than it is a story.
Yet, despite being a very pretty piece of cinema, Sharper’s ultimate problem is that it is forgettable. While an enjoyable experience at the time, most of the drama relies on two or three major surprise reveals, but beneath that there is not a lot there. It’s more of an exercise in dramatic writing techniques than it is a story. Take away the twists and the story is not a strong one, lacking in character and moral statement. Watching this movie felt a bit like being a spectator at a dramatic poker game that you have absolutely no stake in. Intriguing, sometimes thrilling, but never emotionally engaging.
Comments