Jim Carrey plays a lawyer punished by his own son's birthday wish in Liar Liar, Tom Shadyac's 1997 comedy built entirely around one absurd premise.
What is Liar Liar about?
Fletcher Reid is the kind of attorney who lies reflexively, to clients, to coworkers, and most damagingly to his own son, whom he keeps disappointing with broken promises. After Fletcher lets the boy down one time too many, the child's birthday wish comes true in the worst possible way: for a full twenty-four hours, his father physically cannot tell a lie. The condition strikes on a day packed with exactly the kind of situations a compulsive liar depends on smoothing over, from courtroom arguments to office politics to conversations at home he would normally talk his way around. What follows tracks Fletcher scrambling through his own life with nothing but the truth to work with.
About the cast
Jim Carrey plays Fletcher Reid at the height of his physical-comedy period, with Maura Tierney as his ex-wife and Cary Elwes, Jennifer Tilly, Swoosie Kurtz, Sara Paxton, Anne Haney and Amanda Donohoe rounding out the people caught in the fallout of his sudden honesty.
Context & significance
Director Tom Shadyac keeps the film's 86-minute runtime tight, building each scene around a fresh way for Fletcher's condition to collide with his job and his family life. The fantasy-comedy premise gives the film room to needle at the legal profession's reputation for evasive language without ever turning into a courtroom drama. The film arrived during a run of high-concept comedies built on a single rule-bound premise, and its tight focus on one enforced condition, rather than a sprawling plot, is a large part of why the central joke keeps working across the full runtime. Shadyac lets Carrey's physical performance carry long stretches with minimal dialogue, trusting the premise to generate its own escalating momentum scene after scene.
Watching Liar Liar on Ktime
Liar Liar streams on K-Time with a free account login, available with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles for viewers who prefer either option. The Farsi-first interface makes browsing and switching audio tracks straightforward for Iranian audiences.