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Liar Liar
Promotional poster for Liar Liar
Directed by	Tom Shadyac
Produced by	Brian Grazer
Written by	Paul Guay Stephen Mazur
Starring	Jim Carrey Maura Tierney Justin Cooper Jennifer Tilly Anne Haney Swoosie Kurtz Cary Elwes Amanda Donohoe Rated: PG-13
Music by	John Debney
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Distributed by	Universal Pictures Imagine Entertainment
Release date(s)	March 21, 1997 (USA)
Running time	86 min.
Language	English

Liar Liar (1997) is an American comedy film starring Jim Carrey. It was directed by Tom Shadyac from a story written by Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur. Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe Award (1998) for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical. The film is the second of three collaborations between Jim Carrey and Tom Shadyac, the first being Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the third being Bruce Almighty.

Fletcher Reede (Carrey) is a particularly career-focused lawyer and divorced father. He has a habit of giving precedence to his job, breaking promises to be with his young son Max, and then lying to both Max and his ex-wife Audrey about the real reason he missed the get-together. Fletcher lets Max down once too often, missing his birthday party, and has to deal with the consequences of a wish Max makes while blowing out the candles on his cake that actually comes true. The wish is that Fletcher cannot tell a lie for an entire day. The plot is reminiscent of The Twilight Zone episode "The Whole Truth," which involves a used car salesman being forced into uninhibited honesty by a haunted car.

Fletcher soon has several embarrassing instances where he blurts out exactly what he is thinking and figures out that he is unable to lie or even withhold a true answer. Some of these instances include: After sleeping with a colleague, she asks "was it good for you?" "I've had better," he responds. When an attractive girl says everyone is so nice to her, he says "Well, that's because you have big jugs! I mean - your boobs are huge! I mean - I wanna squeeze em'!" Also when he walks out of the elevator and everyone is plugging their nose, he admits "It was me!". When an obese man asks "What's up," he says, "Your cholesterol, fatty! Dead man walkin'." He also tells a co-worker he doesn't know his name because he's not important enough. When he tries to explain his situation to his secretary, she doesn't believe him so he sets himself up good. He tells her to ask him something she thinks he would normally lie about. She asks him about a raise she wanted a couple months ago. Fletcher had told her it would make the other secretaries jealous. She asks if that was true or if he just didn't want to "pony up the dough". These incidents come at a rather bad time as he is fighting a child custody case in court, which, should he win, could be a huge boost to his career. His main witness is willing to commit perjury to help win but Fletcher discovers he cannot even ask a question if he knows the answer will be a lie. Meanwhile, Audrey is threatening to move to Boston with her new boyfriend, Jerry, and take Max with them.

Over the course of the film, Fletcher realizes what is truly important to him and, at the end, struggles to stop his son from being taken so far away from him. He also manages to win the case truthfully by using a loophole in the law, with the repercussions being a major catalyst to his understanding of what he is likely to lose. When he sees the results of winning the case (the mother of the children tries to stop them saying goodbye to their father), he ends up shouting at the judge to reverse the decision and gets thrown in jail for contempt in court. When telephoning Audrey to bail him, she refuses. However, his old secretary turns up and bails him.

Near the end, Fletcher hijacks a stairway used to get onto planes and rushes towards his son. He is injured after an accident but does manage to speak to his son. The "Curse" finishes at 8:15 pm, but Fletcher vows to tell nothing but the truth from now on.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics with a "Fresh" score of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and a "Fresh" score of 85% of the Cream Of The Crop from major news outlets. And a "Fresh" score of 81% from the user's. Critics such as Roger Ebert stated, "I am gradually developing a suspicion, or perhaps it is a fear, that Jim Carrey is growing on me" for which Roger Ebert has previously gave bad reviews on past Jim Carrey films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber.

The film did well at the box office. In the opening weekend the film made $31,423,025 in 2,845 theater's. Domestically the film made $181,410,615. And at the Foreign Box Office it made $121,300,000. Altogether the film made $302,710,615.

• Cal (Seth Rogen) references Liar Liar in The 40-year-old Virgin, calling it a "smart movie" and claiming its moral was "don't lie."

• In Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey's news reporter character is temporarily billed as "Mr. Exclusive." The poster used to illustrate this is an unused Liar Liar promotional poster.

• Jim Carrey and Cary Elwes will reunite in the upcoming A Christmas Carol film directed by Robert Zemeckis.

• Jim Carrey as Fletcher Reede
• Maura Tierney as Audrey Reede
• Justin Cooper as Max Reede
• Cary Elwes as Jerry
• Jennifer Tilly as Samantha Cole
• Amanda Donohoe as Miranda
• Swoosie Kurtz as Dana Appleton
• Jason Bernard as Judge Marshall Stevens
• Anne Haney as Greta
• Mitchell Ryan as Mr. Allan
• Krista Allen as Sexy Elevator Girl
• Cheri Oteri
• Randall "Tex" Cobb
• Sara Paxton
• Eric Sharp as Sharpo the Clown

• Liar Liar at the Internet Movie Database