A cynical con artist who makes a living giving lonely men the best nights of their lives takes on one final mark -- a terminally ill romantic -- only to discover he’s been running a con of his own.
Kim makes a living pretending to love men she can’t stand. A professional con artist with a gift for performance, she gives lonely guys the best night of their lives, before stealing whatever they value most. She tells herself she’s helping them, giving them connection, confidence, closure. But as she peels off another wig and counts another cut, she’s starting to wonder: is she a good liar, or just a bad person?
Her partner, Liam, certainly isn’t losing sleep over it. Older, jaded, and amused by his own cynicism, he’s been in the game long enough to call it human nature. Everyone lies, he says -- about love, ambition, kindness, everything. He and Kim aren't villains, they're efficient realists. Over champagne in a sleek restaurant, Liam divides their latest haul and pitches one final job: Jonathan Adler, 32, trust fund, private jet, and six months to live.
Kim balks. Conning a dying man? Even for her, that’s low. But Liam insists: she’ll be doing him a favor. Give him romance, meaning, something beautiful before the end. One last job, one clean exit, and they’re done for good.
Enter Jonathan: pale, kind, and utterly sincere -- or so it seems. Kim reinvents herself as Poppy, a whimsical, blue-haired dream girl, and “accidentally” meets him at an open-mic night. To her surprise, he’s funny, charming, and disarmingly self-aware. The mark starts feeling like a real person. Against her better judgment, Kim starts enjoying herself.
But real emotions don’t mix well with fake identities. When an old mark recognizes her mid-date, chaos erupts -- ending with Jonathan unconscious in a hospital bed. Wracked with guilt, Kim confesses everything to his sleeping body: her exhaustion, her longing to stop lying, her fear that she’s incapable of being real. She swears she’ll change if he just wakes up. Then she leaves.
And Jonathan opens his eyes.
He’s not dying. Not even sick. His “doctor” is an actor-for-hire. Jonathan’s been conning her the whole time.
As Kim returns, he slips effortlessly back into character -- the frail, gentle man she’s fallen for -- and she, none the wiser, takes his hand. In a show about deception, loneliness, and the blurred lines between performance and connection, F*CKING LIARS asks: If love is build on lies, does that make it any less real?
Leah Bleich is an LA-based director, producer and writer. A mentee of director Cathy Yan ("Birds of Prey"), Leah recently completed her feature directorial debut, "The Moon & Back," as one of five filmmakers selected out of over 350 applicants for “The Six Feet Apart Experiment,” a ground-breaking filmmaking competition from Wayfarer Studios. Her short films have screened at festivals across the world, notably including the LA Music Video Festival, where her short "Elsewhere" won Best Student Music Video. Leah is currently a selected filmmaker in MTV Entertainment Studios’s inaugural First Time Director’s Initiative. Leah is also a Development Executive. During her time at Solstice Studios, she worked closely on the development and production of the films “Unhinged” starring Russell Crowe and "Hypnotic" starring Ben Affleck. She's currently a Creative Executive in Comedy TV Development at Just For Laughs, where she has helped produce projects with talent including Bob Odenkirk, Nicole Byer, Nikki Glaser, and Pete Holmes. Leah is represented by Tracy Kopulsky and Delaney Morris at Grandview.
