Synopsis for
Liar Liar (1997) More at IMDbPro »

Fletcher Reede (Jim 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. Max wishes, "I wish that for just one day, Dad can't tell a lie. Immediately, that wish actually and magicaly comes true. 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, like a Torrette's Syndrome twitch, and figures out that he is unable to lie or even withhold a true answer. Some of these instances include: Immediately after Max makes his wish, Fletcher has just had sex with his law office colleague Miranda and when she asks "was it good for you?" "I've had better," he responds.

The next morning, 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 at his office and everyone is plugging their nose, he admits "It was me!". When an obese man asks "What's up," he says, "Your cholesterol! 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 if he gave her a raise 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". His secretary immediately quits and threatens to sue him.

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. Fletcher learns about Audrey's departure and tries to make her stay in town so he can be close to Max. It is here that Fletcher learns about Max's birthday wish and now realizes that he cannot tell a lie for 24 hours which will mean that the magical ability (or curse) will expire on the 24th hour when Max made the wish at his birthday party; at 8:15 pm.

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 out, she refuses. However, his old secretary turns up and bails him.

At the climax, Fletcher races to LAX and 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... so he claims.

Over the end credits, a montage of bloopers and outtakes from the movie is shown.