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Tom Shadyac
March 18, 1997
Jim Carrey is a lot of things. Boring and apathetic are not either of them. At the height of his career, he would star in The Cable Guy. A film where he would go above and beyond in his ability to combine slapstick humor and silly faces in a place where it wasn’t needed. But now it feels right at home in a movie about a lawyer, weird right? To compound on that, everyone else in the movie is normal. Normal in the sense that they don’t admit to a bad sexual experience in front of a courtroom.
Fletcher Reede is a lawyer and a damn good one. He has already been divorced due to his work ethic which places his job over family, but he still tries to find time to make up for the eight years he neglected his son Max (Justin Cooper). But juggling work and family is just too much for him. He tries to give Max a time and place but it never seems to workout as he is either tardy or absent. But finally after failing to appear at his birthday like he promised, Max wishes that for one day his dad couldn’t tell a lie. How exciting. Oh and this comes true, of course.
The timing couldn’t be worse. As it turns out it is the day Fletcher is defending Samantha Cole (Jennifer Tilly) in court on account of adulatory, or more like seven as she would later clarify (not something you want to say to an attorney that can’t lie). Throughout the day we get to see the slippery slope a lawyer has to face when they can’t lie. This is where Jim Carrey shines in the film. He really is an over-actor as Swoosie Kurtz would point out in an outtake (I highly recommend you watch the out-takes video). He throws himself into a film with no boundaries (thanks Tom Shadyac) and it turns into a one man free for all. Jim Carrey still loses.
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