LIAR LIAR
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Jim Carrey stars in a morality comedy
about the value of veracity and the price of
prevarication. A lawyer finds his own son has
cursed him to speak nothing but the truth for one
whole day. A little bit of the Carrey personality
goes a long way and too much of it steals what just
a bit would have given the film. The script seems
a bit inconsistent about just what are the terms of
the curse. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 12 positive, 0 negative, 7 mixed
LIAR LIAR is basically a retread of a 1961 episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. In that story Jack Carson played a lying used car dealer Harvey Hunnicut who bought a car that came equipped with a curse. Whoever owned the car could speak only the truth. Carson made a few contorted faces as he tried to force himself to lie to customers but eventually had to give in to the acceptance that the curse really worked on him. Eventually he was able to become a double winner not just because he sold the car to someone else: the person he sold it to was Nikita Krushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union. A similar concept was used in THE WHOLE TRUTH, in which Bob Hope agrees to tell the truth for a whole day. LIAR LIAR is, however, much closer to the TWILIGHT ZONE story, with the lying profession changed from used car salesman to an unscrupulous lying lawyer. The sorrowful or bewildered facial gestures Carson gave his Hunnicut character. But the facial gestures are exaggerated by Jim Carrey into, well, what we would expect from Jim Carrey.
Carrey plays Fletcher Reede, not just a lawyer but the paragon of lying lawyers. Fletcher makes his living by subverting the truth. And what he does in his professional life he does in his private life. With cheating and lies he destroyed his marriage to his former wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) and is in the process of alienating their son Max (Justin Cooper). Fletcher has promised to be at Max's fifth birthday party and is instead in bed with his boss (Amanda Donohoe of LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM) trying to screw his way to the top. The disappointed Max makes a wish that his father cannot lie for a whole day. And the wish comes true, on a day when Fletcher needs to be a skillful professional liar Fletcher discovers that only the truth can issue from him mouth.
LIAR LIAR could have had a deeper resonance if its positive statements were not always undermined by what is just too much slapstick. The film was directed by Tom Shadyac of ACE VENTURA and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR where it really needed someone of the caliber of Billy Wilder. In addition, it builds to an action-packed finale that goes too far beyond what is really needed for this sort of material. Again the subtlety of Wilder could have worked wonders. But for me the real problem with LIAR LIAR is that the scriptwriters, Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, are never sure of the ground rules of the premise and so the audience is never sure either. What exactly is the wish all about? Supposedly it was that Fletcher cannot tell a lie for twenty-four hours, but what does that mean? Does it mean that he can or cannot evade the truth? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no. Can he remain silent or does he have to always be candid? Is a promise made in good faith and then later broken intentionally the same thing as a lie? For that matter is a promise made in good faith and broken due to uncontrollable circumstances the same thing as a lie? Do the same forces that compel truth from Fletcher bend fate so that what he has promised will come inevitably true? These are all questions that should have been answered before the first word of the script was typed. There were moments in this story when a truthful answer of "I really would not want to answer that question right at this moment" would have been the logical way out of Fletcher's current problem when he instead seems compelled to give an overly candid response.
In addition something not required by the premise are the over- the-top rubber-faced expressions from Carrey who breaks through to telling the truth like he is smashing through a physical barrier. It would not be a Jim Carrey film without some of this, but as he usually does he carries a good thing too far. Carrey is amusing, but his antics get in the way of the viewer getting any real feeling out of his part. Implied, but never fully developed, is that the most important effect of the curse on his character is that he can no longer lie to himself. By just being honest with himself he achieves a new level of self-understanding that allows him to put his life in order. The script makes another ironic point. While the film shows how much damage Fletcher has done with his lies, some of his lies have had positive effects. His uncontrollable candor hurts people who relied on some of his little fibs to bolster their egos. Telling the truth to everybody is almost as destructive as lying was.
With a little more concentration on the script and a little more subdued Carrey, this could have been a much better film. As it is, it gets a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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