A Liar's Autobiography

A LIAR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Directors : Bill Jones, Ben Timlett and Jeff Simpson

Year : 2013

Genre : Comedy

Rating : **1/2

'A Liar's Autobiography' is the film adaptation of the comedic fictional autoiography written by the pipe smoking Monty Python star Graham Chapman. Using the actual recordings of Chapman reading his book a few months before his tragic death in 1989 and utilising the voices of 4 of the 5 surviving Python's, 'A Liar's Autobiography' is an entertaining, if not messy adaptation of the life of the most complicated member of this legendary group of comedians. To me, Chapman was the most surreal of the Pythons and as a result, my favourite. He had the ability to be incredibly silly and then turn on a dime to be deadpan serious. However, despite this insane silliness, he was for most of his comedic career a raging drunk who was coming to terms with his homosexuality and unfortunately, 'A Liar's Autobiography' doesn't even begin to scratch the surface to reveal more about the complicated life of this genius of comedy.

Despite using many of the Python's voices and displaying some of the same humour as portrayed in 'Flying Circus', 'A Liar's Autobiography' really doesn't feel like a Monty Python movie and while there are some moments of inspired silly dialogue, the film really isn't as funny as it should be. This is a shame because from the moments the first trailer for this film surfaced, I was extremely excited. As mentioned earlier, Graham Chapman was my favourite of all the Pythons and the idea of a movie based on his life really intrigued me. However, upon watching the film, I found myself getting rather bored. This isn't due to the dialogue written or Chapman's voiceover, but the animations used to tell the story.

 'A Liar's Autobiography' is told in chapters and each one uses a different animation style. Ranging from 'Yellow Submarine'esque psychedelic artwork to admittedly beautiful hand drawn sketches, the film varies in tone and quality due it's choice of animation. This proves to be rather distracting as I found myself pushed away from the story and dialogue by the sometimes anarchic animation and I would have rather that the film just stuck to one style. Some of the more complex and heartfelt chapters of the story uses a more cartoonish style and this just adds to the alienation of the audience from the film. This is a shame because some of the dialogue written is extremely funny and some is surprisingly heartfelt. While 'A Liar's Autobiography' is indeed fictional, there are some elements of the film which do seem to ring of the air of truth and I wish that the directors had taken these scenes more seriously. But then again, Graham Chapman was rarely serious himself.

Despite these problems, there are some moments in 'A Liar's Autobiography' which will be real treats for die-hard Python fans including visual references and the use of actual sketch dialogue. The beginning scene utilises a scenario based around one of my favourite ever routines, 'the Oscar Wilde sketch' and with the use of actual recordings of interviews and sketches, 'A Liar's Autobiography' contains a few in jokes that only true fans of Monty Python will understand. John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones all lend their voices to the film and hearing their characters is a welcome return of some of their famous archetypes such as Jones' pepperpot old ladies, Cleese's forthright teachers and Palin's no-nonsense father figures; all made famous by 'Flying Circus' and especially the Python's final film 'The Meaning Of Life'. However, their voices really don't seem to add anything to the movie in any way and just seems to add to the air of vanity project that seeps through the duration of the film.

Much like many of the Python's projects, there are some scenes that don't work as well as others and while there are some scenes that are just brilliant, there are others that really don't seem to fit in. There is one especially annoying scene involving Sigmund Freud (voiced by Cameron Diaz) that doesn't seem to serve plot or narrative in anyway shape or form. The ending is especially strange as it uses footage from Chapmans actual funeral which finishes the movie on a surprisingly downbeat and depressing tone, surprising for a called 'comedy'.

'A Liar's Autobiography' will probably turn out to be the most disappointing movie of 2013 for me. The prospects of a film adaptation of Chapmans hilarious book utilising the voices of most of the remaining Pythons really excited me. But in the end, it really didn't turn out be anything special at all. What could have been a long awaited tribute to this comedic genius turned out to be a vanity project and a misguided waste of Graham Chapman's madcap talent. 'A Liar's Autobiography' is a somewhat anarchic, strange, sometimes annoying tribute to a talent much missed by the world and especially, by me.

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