History Headscratchers / LiarLiar

* Several scenes suggest that Fletcher can't lie by omission. If that is true, how was he able to get away with not admitting he beat himself up. While he gets around explicitly naming himself by giving a physical description (that matches his own) and saying he was beaten by a madman and a desperate fool (which accurately describes how he feels), but by using those ExactWords, he's trying to make the others think an unknown assailant beat him up, which they believe. Wouldn't that count as a lie of omission?

* Several scenes suggest that Fletcher can't lie by omission. If that is true, how was he able to get away with not admitting he beat himself up. While he gets around explicitly naming himself by giving a physical description (that matches his own) and saying he was beaten by a madman and a desperate fool (which accurately describes how he feels), but by using those ExactWords, he's trying to make the others think an unknown assailant beat him up, which they believe. Wouldn't that count as a lie of omission?

*** If you mean his boss, she did ask him a question. "Well, what do you think of him?" She seemed to add that precisely because [[GenreSavvy she knew he had to tell the truth]] when answering a direct question.

* Several scenes suggest that Fletcher can't lie by omission. If that is true, how was he able to get away with not admitting he beat himself up. While he gets around explicitly naming himself by giving a physical description (that matches his own) and saying he was beaten by a madman on his last strand of sanity (which probably accurately describes how he feels), but by using those ExactWords, he's trying to make the others think an unknown assailant beat him up, which they believe. Wouldn't that count as a lie of omission?

** My immediate knee-jerk response is "[[RuleOfFunny It's just a movie]]," but one possible in-universe explanation is that the rules work according to Fletcher's perceptions rather than his kid's; if he ''thinks'' he's about to be dishonest, then he's unable to do it. That seems to fit what we see in the movie, like when he's forced to tell the people in the elevator he's the one who farted (nobody asked him, he just feels he'd be misleading them by not saying anything). In those moments when he appears to bend the rules (as when he tells the judge he was beaten by "a madman" but doesn't clarify that it was himself), it's probably because he ''isn't'' intending to mislead anyone, even if that's the effect. I think this also helps explain why some of his forced "honesty" involves being forced to divulge what are simply personal opinions--"I'm a bad father"; "That's just something ugly people say"; or his insulting statements about his coworkers. This differs from a movie like ''Film/TheInventionOfLying'', where it's implied that the characters' inability to lie means their being bound to some extent by objective reality, not just personal perception of the truth.

** Or Max's birthday fell on a weekday that year, so he could of had his birthday party on the weekend before/after. On the actual day it was just a small celebration with his parents.

** She was old enough to get married, but not old enough to sign a binding legal contract (the pre-nuptial agreement). The age when you can marry varies widely state-to-state and country-to-country, just like the age you can have sex, join the military, drink, sign documents, or vote. So the marriage was legal, but the pre-nuptial agreement was void.
** But she said she changed her age so that she could get married. Why would she do that if it were legal?
*** Possibly just to make the contract appear legal. Alternatively, even if she was below the legal age to get married at the time, they're probably legally married by now.
*** Likewise, she might not have even realized that she ''could'' get married at her age, and just assumed that if she couldn't sign a contract, she also couldn't get married.
*** It still seems shady that the husband would be penalized for acting in good faith, not to mention rewarding the woman for falsifying records. Besides which, if she were married, and therefore emancipated from her parents, wouldn't she then be granted many of the legal rights granted to adults? Not necessarily the ability to buy alcohol ''("I got married at 17! Give me a brewski!")'', but signing contracts and entering into agreements on her own behalf?
*** I think you sign the pre-nuptial before the marriage.
*** If nothing else, with her being in her thirties, and them getting the pre-nuptial when she was 17, they are married by common law, if nothing else...
*** Actually the whole thing should have been thrown out. The judge and Mr. Cole's lawyer really dropped the ball on that one because, like Fletcher said, "a minor can't sign a legal binding document in the state of California", at least not without parental consent, but that also includes a marriage license. If she was a minor and got married but lied about her age, her marriage is void. As for "common-law" marriage, that is not recognized in the state of California anymore so it makes no sense that they let her walk away with that win. Now, if she was not a minor on the day of the wedding, things would be a little different but not by much. She would still be legally married to him but he could get the marriage annuled upon learning of her falsification of her age, and unlike divorce, this is retroactive in most cases so she should get nothing still. It makes no sense that community property laws would still apply when her marriage is technically nonexistent and she has proven to be unfaithful.
** There seems to be a misapprehension about contracts with minors, which are voidABLE, not void. Accordingly, a minor who enters a putative contract must declare intention to avoid the contract. If the minor does not declare such intention within a reasonable period of time on reaching the age of emancipation (usually 18), the contract is considered RATIFIED and must be executed. Given that the woman was in her thirties, the prenup should have been presumed ratified unless California's abolition of the Common Law marriage also abolished ratification for marriages, in which case both the woman's marriage AND her prenup would be annulled. More fundamentally, though, properly applied legal principle would almost never award a fraudster a hefty payout on this sort of technicality. Amateur legal thrillers often reveal painful ignorance of the fact that Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence has over a thousand years of precedents behind it and is quite plastic.
*** Additionally, her husband states he had no idea she was underage, which means he could have had the marriage annulled on the grounds of fraud, which would leave her none of his wealth.
*** In short, Ms. Cole is a KarmaHoudini in the same way Larry's ex-wife from ''Film/ThrowMommaFromTheTrain'' is one: the story ended before it could show Karma finally bite them in the ass, but there's no way it isn't going to eventually.
*** I think they're considered common-law husband and wife given how long they've been together.
*** There's another reason the case should have gone towards her. California is a two party consent state when it comes to recording. Ie, the sex recording was illegal evidence and Fletcher should have had it removed before they even pressed play.

** This whole thing bugged me. SHE lied about her age, SHE cheated, yet SHE gets the money??
*** Yes, she benefits from a legal technicality even though ethically and morally she was completely in the wrong. It's ''supposed'' to bug you. That's the point.

* My fan theory (to this lie and to the whole film actually): No magic spells, Fletcher was unconsciously unable to lie (with that one exception) due to his guilty conscience catching up with him. When his son told him about the wish, it just solidified the psychological effect, and gave him a point in time which his conscience could let him off. This adds a plausibility to the story that a magic spell would not allow for.
** So you find it more "plausible" that Fletcher was struck with some sort of acute mental illness at exactly 8:15pm one night that made him psychologically incapable of lying, and then inexplicably cured of said mental illness at exactly 8:15pm the next night? Why the need for this overcomplicated explanation when "magic spell" is so much simpler?
*** Because magic is a fake made-up thing that isn't real, one assumes. Besides, the inability to lie vanishing at 8:15 the next day isn't the mental block being completely cured, it's just manifesting in a less inconvenient manner.
*** You know what else is a fake made-up thing that isn't real? This fictional mental illness you've imagined that somehow makes a person unable to lie for exactly 24 hours.
*** The impression I got from this theory (and this is not ''my'' theory) is that this mental block made him unable to lie ''indefinitely'', and hearing that his son had wished for a 24-hour no-lies period just gave him a convenient "out", because YourMindMakesItReal.
*** Seriously dude, Occam's Razor. "Magic spell" is a thousand times simpler than this mythical mental disorder that somehow makes Fletcher unable to lie for exactly 24 hours. I don't understand why you would favor such an overcomplicated and bizarre explanation when the premise established ''in the actual movie'' is so much simpler and requires far fewer mental gymnastics.
*** Not the original poster here, but it seems like the guy arguing is being purposefully obtuse just because he doesn't like the theory. You can not possibly deny that it is MORE LIKELY that someone's guilty conscience causes them to be subconsciously unable to lie than that MAGIC causes them to be unable to lie. That is absolutely unarguable. I don't believe this theory either (mainly because the movie never comes close to implying this is the case) but the reason I don't believe it isn't because I don't acknowledge it being way more plausible in real life.
*** Your mental illness theory doesn't work out since it implies he felt so bad about lying to his son that he gave himself a form of Tourette's built around his son's wish. All the exposition in the movie shows that he was a compulsive liar and hurt his family all the time. He wasn't able to change to save his marriage, and he doesn't even realize how much he's hurting his son. The only major change that would cause it is that his ex-wife and son are moving away, and he is in complete denial about that meaning as much to him as it does.
*** Plus, I'm fairly sure he didn't ''know'' they were potentially moving away at that point in the film, so that couldn't have had any impact on Fletcher's actions.
*** Alternative theory: In this universe a man can lose his ability to lie by being cursed, because that's the whole premise of the movie.
*** Indeed. OP, other arguers, I'd like to introduce you to this little concept called fiction...
*** I believe the proper answer to this comes from Roger Ebert's commentary about a different film which showed what is often cited as an AchievementInIgnorance in the form of walking on water. Fans have speculated about mundane explanations for it, like the character walking on a barely submerged pier or sandbar, and Ebert's take on this famously went as follows: "The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image, it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier — a movie is exactly what it shows us, and nothing more." In the case of Liar Liar, the plot device is framed as magical, not mundane, and no mundane alternative is posited or implied. We are therefore obliged to treat it as such instead of trying to shoehorn a mundane explanation in.
*** While I agree that the idea of a naturalistic explanation for the events in ''Liar Liar'' is silly, I disagree with Ebert's interpretation of ''Film/BeingThere''. That movie was definitely pondering the line between truth and illusion, and so a rational explanation for the bizarre final scene does have some basis in terms of the movie's themes.
*** To wit: there being something just underwater that Chance is walking on would essentially mean the viewer is making the ''exact'' same mistake that other characters have made throughout the movie, in assuming Chance is far more gifted and brilliant than he really is.

*** To wit: there being something just underwater that Chance is walking on would essentially mean the viewer is making the ''exact'' same mistake that other characters have made throughout the movie, in assuming Chance is far more gifted and brilliant than he really is.

** So with the court, the problem is that Fletcher is having them lie so that he himself can create a bigger lie. Their lies ARE his lies and so he's being compelled to stop it. As for blurting out to his coworkers, as mentioned above, he's so used to reflexively spouting bullshit he's just throwing out what he's really thinking left and right.

*** To wit: there being something just underwater that Chance is walking on would essentially mean the viewer is making the ''exact'' same mistake that other characters have made throughout the movie, in assuming Chance is far more gifted and brilliant than he really is.

*** While I agree that the idea of a naturalistic explanation for the events in ''Liar Liar'' is silly, I disagree with Ebert's interpretation of ''Film/BeingThere''. That movie was definitely pondering the line between truth and illusion, and so a rational explanation for the bizarre final scene does have some basis in terms of the movie's themes

*** While I agree that the idea of a naturalistic explanation for the events in ''Liar Liar'' is silly, I disagree with Ebert's interpretation of ''Film/BeingThere''. That movie was definitely pondering the line between truth and illusion, and so a rational explanation for the bizarre final scene does have some basis in terms of the movie's themes (To wit: there being something just underwater that Chance is walking on would essentially mean the viewer is making the ''exact'' same mistake that other characters have made throughout the movie, in assuming Chance is far more gifted and brilliant than he really is).

* Why does Max's wish have so many technicalities? When he made the wish, Max specifically says "I wish for just one day, my dad can't tell a lie", yet Fletcher is unable to ask questions to his witnesses if he knows they'll give a false answer, and he blurts out insensitive remarks about his co-workers shortcomings. I feel like even if these issues carry the same principle, the problem is Max didn't specifically wish for them to happen, and honestly I feel like he's too young to fully understand the concept of honesty, so can anyone explain this to me?