Sharper Trailer Breakdown: Andor Director Benjamin Caron Teases His Twisty Con Artist Thriller

Sharper Trailer Breakdown: Andor Director Benjamin Caron Teases His Twisty Con Artist Thriller,Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan and John Lithgow are tangled in a web of deception in Apple+'s thriller film. Read more at Empire.

Sharper Trailer Breakdown: Andor Director Benjamin Caron Teases His Twisty Con Artist Thriller

Fresh from directing several episodes of 2022’s best TV show (Andor, obvs!), director Benjamin Caron is shifting gears with Sharper – a darkly comic con-artist drama that clearly hopes to keep you guessing. Directing from a script by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka (which made the 2020 ‘Black List’, the annual survey of the best unproduced screenplays) and starring Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith and Briana Middleton, it’s a twisty, devious little poker game of a film, about trust and betrayal and mysterious sexual politics.

Now that the first trailer has just landed, Caron spoke to Empire to break it down in forensic detail and unveil a few of its delicious secrets — while holding plenty back, too.

Catch me if you Stan

When we first meet Sebastian Stan’s Max, he’s trying to con his new billionaire stepdad Richard (John Lithgow) out of a thousand dollars. This is the film in microcosm, says Caron. “Deception is probably the defining feature of this movie,” he tells Empire. “Sharper is probably less interested in crime specifically and more interested in how people talk, flirt, lie, impersonate, and connive in order to get what they want.” Everyone in this film seems to be engaged in some sort of misdirection — but Max takes it to the nth degree. “Max is quite a seductive proposition,” Caron continues. “He's audacious, he's smart, he's inventive. But he's also kind of vulnerable and unpredictable. Sebastian has this amazing ability to inhabit all of those things.”

Dragged through a hedge fund

The man getting (almost) conned by Max is John Lithgow’s Richard Hobbes, an extremely wealthy businessman, who scoffs at Max’s paltry attempt. “If you’re going to steal,” Richard admonishes Max, “steal a lot.” He’s hardly a good guy either, then? “I wouldn't feel too bad about that guy getting ruffled up,” Caron says with a smile. Richard, he explains, is “a hedge fund billionaire, a narcissistic financier. He has basically used his innate ruthlessness as the seed. He's a socially acceptable apex predator who despises weakness.” Sounds like a charming bloke! (Caron was thrilled to work with Lithgow again after directing him as Winston Churchill in the first season of The Crown. “He won an Emmy for that,” says Caron proudly, “and we’ve been dying to work together ever since.”)

How to marry a billionaire

Now, we ain’t saying she’s a gold digger. But Julianne Moore’s Madeline seems to have one thing on her mind. “Of course I like him,” Madeline says in the trailer. “He’s a billionaire.” (It recalls the famous Mrs Merton question: “So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”) Deception can take many forms, including romance, Caron explains: “I've always been interested the idea of a romance scam,” he says, “because I think it explores deeper themes of how much the profit motive affects every aspect of our lives, from sex, to physical and mental health, to family, to work, and politics — and not least, love.”

Transform, and roll out!

The romance scam possibly extends to the character of Sandra, played here by relative newcomer Briana Middleton. Caron is keeping schtum on whether that is actually the case (“I would rather anyone who comes to this knows nothing at all,” he says diplomatically) but promises that your perception of nearly every character is likely to be turned on its head. “The idea of transformation is really appealing to me,” he says. “The notion of escaping one reality and entering another one is fascinating — it's the realm of fairy tales. Cinderella going to the ball, Eliza in Pygmalion, Vivian in Pretty Woman… we are conditioned to respond positively to stories of reinvention. The transformations in Sharper are deliciously unscrupulous and cunning.”

They came together

Here we see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s Justice Smith as Tom, who falls for Sandra in what Caron says will be the film’s opening scenes. “It’s almost as if Richard Curtis had made Notting Hill in New York with a slightly more indie sensibility,” he says. “We start in a bookshop, it’s that classic moment: a man in a bookshop, a girl walks in, they fall in love.” There is deception coming from the filmmakers too: if you knew nothing about the film going into it, there’s an almost cold-open feel to it. “That’s the feeling I wanted the audience to have watching this film, taking them off in a certain direction — because after about 20 minutes, it changes quite drastically.”

‘Tis the season

To authentically hit those romcom vibes, Caron sought some authentic Nora Ephron-esque weather. “We filmed Sharper through three seasons in New York,” he says. “I wanted to use seasons to kind of convey a tone and feeling. When we meet Tom and Sandra, it’s springtime in New York, a kind of classically romantic season and a perfect time to fall in love.” But again, all is not quite what it seems; the film is constructed in a way to slightly deceive you. “You can't really see from the trailer, but the film has a nonlinear narrative,” Caron explains, “in a way that echoes the tricks of the story. That's what I want when I go and see a film: I want to be constantly surprised and second guessing and slightly behind where I think I am.” The only thing to expect, it seems, is the unexpected.

Sharper is coming to UK and US cinemas in a limited release, and will stream on Apple TV+ from 17 February