--- title: "Liar Liar" year: 1997 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/liar-liar" fi1m_score: 68 critics_score: 71 critics_reviews: 14 published: "2026-09-17T00:36:51.270759+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T00:37:01.416546+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Liar Liar (1997) Directed by Tom Shadyac · 1h 26m · MPA PG-13 · Comedy, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 68** · Critics 71 from 14 reviews *In a sentence:* Jim Carrey beats himself up in a lavatory for two minutes and it is the best writing in the film > Jim Carrey’s one-day-without-lying comedy is a delivery system for one performer and, for most of its 86 minutes, an efficient one. The gags are sharp and the script around them is thin, and the family scenes at the end go soft. ## Synopsis Los Angeles. Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey) is a lawyer who lies the way other people breathe: to clients, to judges, to his ex-wife Audrey (Maura Tierney) and, worst of all, to their small son (Justin Cooper), whose birthday party he misses because he is in bed with his boss, Miranda (Amanda Donohoe). Blowing out his candles, the boy wishes that for one whole day his father cannot tell a lie. The next morning Fletcher wakes up honest, on the day he is due in court to win a rich divorce for a guilty client, Samantha Cole (Jennifer Tilly). Audrey, meanwhile, is deciding whether to move to Boston with her new man, Jerry (Cary Elwes), and take the boy with her. ## Review Tom Shadyac, who directed Carrey in [*Ace Ventura: Pet Detective*](https://film.one/film/ace-ventura-pet-detective) (1994), has one idea here and the sense to know it is enough. Stephen Mazur and Paul Guay’s script takes a man whose whole life is built on lying, makes it impossible for him to lie for twenty-four hours, and then puts him in the two places where honesty does the most damage: a law firm and a courtroom. *Liar Liar* is a good idea done well for about seventy minutes and then done sentimentally for the rest. It is worth seeing for the seventy. Carrey is the film, and he knows exactly what the film needs. He plays Fletcher’s first honest morning as a series of small, appalled discoveries, each one arriving on his face a half-second before the words leave his mouth, so we watch him hear himself. A woman in a lift (Krista Allen) asks what he thinks of her; he tells her. Miranda holds up a pen and asks him to say it is red; his jaw works, his neck strains, and what comes out is the truth, at length, in several voices. A partners’ meeting turns into a roast of everyone at the table. None of these scenes is more than two minutes long, and every one of them earns its laugh. The best of them takes place in a courthouse lavatory and involves Fletcher, a wash basin and nobody else. We laughed harder than we have at a studio comedy in a long while, and we can say precisely why: Carrey plays both halves of a fight, attacker and victim, and Shadyac does not cut away to help him. It is pure silent-film business, done with a body that appears to have no bones, and it is over before it can wear out. The supporting cast is given room, which is not always the case around Carrey. Maura Tierney plays Audrey with more patience than the script writes for her, a woman who has stopped expecting anything and is faintly annoyed to find herself hoping again. Cary Elwes makes Jerry a decent man who suspects decency is not going to be enough, and gets one good, humiliating scene to prove it. Anne Haney, as Fletcher’s secretary Greta, delivers her lines with the flatness of someone who has heard every excuse he owns. Swoosie Kurtz’s opposing counsel and Jason Bernard’s judge do the useful work of reacting, and Jennifer Tilly plays the client as a woman who cannot see why adultery should cost her anything. Russell Boyd lights the law offices in flat, expensive daylight and the courtroom in warm wood, and otherwise puts the camera where it can see all of Carrey and leaves it there. Linda DeScenna’s offices are glass and pale wood, the kind of place where a lie sounds like a business plan. Judy L. Ruskin puts Fletcher in suits a shade too good for a man who forgets his son’s birthday. Don Zimmerman cuts fast and gets the whole thing done in 86 minutes, which is the right length for one joke. John Debney’s score is brisk brass when Carrey is moving and strings when the film wants us to think about fatherhood, and the strings arrive more often than we would like. That is the trouble. The premise has a nasty streak in it, the possibility that an honest man might lose everyone, and the film keeps flinching from it. Almost everyone Fletcher insults deserves it. The people he hurts forgive him quickly. The message, that boys need their fathers and fathers need to tell the truth, is stated in the first act, restated in the second, and then handed to a small child to say aloud, at which point we stopped feeling anything and started noticing that we were being asked to. The last stretch is a series of reconciliations we saw coming from the birthday cake. Against Carrey’s own run this sits below [*The Mask*](https://film.one/film/the-mask) (1994), which gave him a world to match his face, and comfortably above the shouting of his weaker vehicles. It is a small, fast, well-made comedy that trusts its star completely and its audience rather less. Watch it with children old enough for the innuendo to go past them, and be prepared to look at your phone during the last ten minutes. *Fi1m score 68, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Liar Liar, and mostly for Jim Carrey. The reviews agree that the premise, a lawyer who cannot lie for a day, is built to suit his physical and vocal contortions, and that Tom Shadyac’s direction consists largely of pointing the camera at him. Several call it a return to form after The Cable Guy, and a few notice a more human side beneath the mania. The reservations cluster on the plot around the performance. Many find the story formulaic and the father-and-son material sugary, with Variety complaining that the final reel lays the sentiment on too thick. Two reviews dissent outright. The New Yorker thinks the film loses its nerve, calming down after an energetic middle and wasting the disorder the premise promises, while The AV Club finds it a Disney comedy with crude jokes added and Carrey’s excess more tiring than funny. Otherwise the spread is narrow; nobody sits on the fence. ### Reviews we read (14) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Duane Byrge (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Jim Carrey's performance and Tom Shadyac's direction for blending farce with heart in this comedy about a lawyer forced to tell the truth. It highlights the film's appeal to a wide audience and its warm-spirited merriment. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/liar-liar-review-jim-carrey-1997-movie-987633/) - **Total Film** (85/100, inferred): A blessed relief and possibly Carrey's best, most consistently funny film yet after The Cable Guy, thanks to a witty script and energetic performance that makes the most of the nice(ish)-guy role. It is a fast-paced, original comedy and hugely entertaining Saturday night out, slicker and funnier than most current releases. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/liar-liar-review/) - **Radio Times**, Jason Caro (4/5): The critic calls it a hilarious comedy and praises Carrey's frenzied physical and vocal contortions for providing amusing and riotous moments. The role is seen as tailor-made for his antics while also allowing a more human side to emerge. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-6s0cj2/liar-liar/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (80/100, inferred): Carrey delivers tireless manic comic energy in a high-energy family comedy that combines slapstick for kids with innuendo for adults. The director mostly plants the camera to watch Carrey go bananas as a physical comedian. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/liar-liar-1997) - **The Independent**, John Lyttle (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a better week for boy fantasies and extravagantly funny, with Carrey relatively controlled yet sustaining a virtuoso display of derangement in key scenes. The script leans on a sentimental families-need-fathers message but delivers when Carrey cuts loose. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/also-showing-1259022.html) - **Empire**, Darren Bignell (75/100, inferred): Carrey's reunion with Shadyac delivers more laughs and less irritation than recent work, with the truth-telling premise providing strong arenas for his performance while supporting cast gets breathing space. Family scenes turn sugary but the film is more than worth a watch and reliably entertaining. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/liar-liar-review/) - **The Guardian**, Tom Lamont (75/100, inferred): It is a formulaic knockabout comedy elevated by an underlying honesty and life lesson about truth-telling. The critic singles out the film's central premise of a compulsive liar forced to tell the truth for one day as the source of both its comedy and deeper resonance. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/apr/03/my-guilty-pleasure-liar-liar) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (75/100, inferred): Jim Carrey transforms a formulaic comedy into an uproarious one-man free-for-all with wild and funny results. The film is less sloppy and more middle-of-the-road than Shadyac's previous Carrey outings. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/21/movies/the-truth-shall-set-you-free-not.html) - **Los Angeles Times**, Steven Smith (70/100, inferred): Carrey plays a pathological liar whose world collapses when forced to tell the truth for 24 hours, delivering cathartic honesty in a classic comedy premise turned on its head. The timely subject resonates after high-profile trials involving shaded truth. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-03-16-ca-38676-story.html) - **Time Out**, TJ (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the premise rudimentary but notes that it reins in Carrey's over-exuberance to deliver likeable, effective mainstream comedy. The film is described as predictable yet solid entertainment. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/liar-liar) - **Variety**, Todd McCarthy (**): A surefire commercial comedy that is awfully funny at times and calculated to hit mainstream demographics, with Carrey's physical contortions providing high hilarity. The script lays on emotional goo too thick in the final reel. [Read](https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/liar-liar-1200449159/) - **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the premise suited to Carrey but the film lacking, comparing it unfavorably to Disney comedies with added crude jokes, and notes Carrey's over-the-top performance fails to make it fully enjoyable. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/liar-liar-1798195751) - **The New Yorker** (40/100, inferred): The premise is sophisticated but the film calms down after an energetic middle patch, reducing the hero to therapeutic statements. Shadyac directs as if making mud pies, missing the disorderly possibilities of the honesty premise. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/03/31/1997-03-31-106-tny-cards-000153877) - **Eye for Film**, Stephen Carty (70/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a one-man showcase for Jim Carrey’s shouty, motormouth antics that plays to all his strengths as a return to form after The Cable Guy. The father-son plotline is occasionally moving, though the over-the-top style will depend on one’s taste for Carrey’s zany comedy. [Read](http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/liar-liar-film-review-by-stephen-carty) ## Details - **Director:** Tom Shadyac - **Director:** Tom Shadyac - **Writer:** Paul Guay, Stephen Mazur - **Cinematography:** Russell Boyd - **Editor:** Don Zimmerman - **Music:** John Debney - **Production design:** Linda DeScenna - **Costume design:** Judy L. Ruskin - **Producer:** Brian Grazer - **Cast:** Jim Carrey as Fletcher Reede; Maura Tierney as Audrey Reede; Justin Cooper as Max Reede; Cary Elwes as Jerry; Anne Haney as Greta; Amanda Donohoe as Miranda; Swoosie Kurtz as Dana Appleton; Jason Bernard as Judge Marshall Stevens - **Runtime:** 1h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 21 March 1997 - **Genres:** Comedy, Fantasy - **Budget:** $45 million - **Box office:** $303 million ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IL, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie 1998: Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Groundhog Day* (1993), Fi1m 88: The same trick, a man remade by a rule he cannot break, done with more patience. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/groundhog-day.md) - *The Truman Show* (1998), Fi1m 88: Carrey a year later, quieter, and a good deal sadder about being watched. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-truman-show.md) - *Big* (1988), Fi1m 81: Another wish granted by accident, and a star who plays the joke straight. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/big.md) - *The Invention of Lying* (2009): The premise run the other way: nobody can lie except one man. - *Bruce Almighty* (2003), Fi1m 55: Shadyac and Carrey again, with a bigger gift and the same soft landing. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bruce-almighty.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/liar-liar