A Liar's Autobiography - The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman

R

2012

1h 25m

Comedy

LGBTQ+

Animation

List

44%

50 Reviews

Tomatometer

46%

250+ Ratings

Audience Score

A flawed biography of one of the founders of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

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Audience Member

And the troupe does it again, portraying their crude sense of humor almost completely in animation this time.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

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Audience Member

Even as a Monty Python fan, this feels pointless in its existence and excessive in terms of style.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

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Audience Member

It tries a little too hard to be 'wacky'

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

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Audience Member

Wanted to like it more than i did

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

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Audience Member

Excellent animated reimagining of the life of a comic talent.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

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Audience Member

Based upon Graham Chapman's A Liar's Autobiography, Volume VI (1980), which was a fictionalised take on his life, this animated take was directed by Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson and Ben Timlett, who were behind the documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Lawyers Cut). It's visually striking, but it's more surreal than funny. Narrated by Graham Chapman, taken from an audio reading of his book recorded in 1986, it tells us of his "life", his childhood growing up with his father (Michael Palin) and mother (Terry Jones). :P How Chapman found out he was gay, and the trouble he had coming out to his parents and people he knew, and how he gave up his career as a doctor to go into comedy after a chance encounter with the Queen Mother (Palin again), and getting work in TV with David Frost (John Cleese), but when he started Monty Python, he descended into alcoholism, but he beat the booze and went to live in Hollywood as a tax dodge. It has some brilliantly animated scenes, but the joke that it's a fictionalised biopic of Chapman's own life, (and knows it), does work against it sometimes, especially if you want to hear some true facts. But it does have some pretty memorable sequences, some sexual and some violent, oh and Cameron Diaz appearing as Sigmund Freud... :P

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

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Bill Jones

Director

Jeff Simpson

Director

Ben Timlett

Director

Graham Chapman

Self

John Cleese

Self

Terry Jones

Self

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Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

metro.co.uk

Unfortunately, its laudably ambitious decision to tell Chapman's story via 14 different animation styles and distribute it in 3D makes you long for a straight TV biopic.

Rated: 2/5

Sep 1, 2017

Full Review

Violet Lucca

Film Comment Magazine

The experience of A Liar's Autobiography is ultimately deflating instead of celebratory.

Jun 28, 2013

Full Review

Derek Malcolm

London Evening Standard

That the film is a bit of a mess reflects Chapman's life precisely.

Rated: 3/5

Feb 8, 2013

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Beyond managing to be a loving homage to one of the prominent members of Monty Python, A Liar's Autobiography also manages to be an enthralling artistic achievement.

Aug 6, 2019

Full Review

John Nugent

CineVue

Fosters a messy, colourful memory in your mind: surreal, psychedelic, sometimes funny, but frustratingly empty beneath the surface, a disappointingly inadequate tribute to a great comedian.

Rated: 2/5

Feb 9, 2019

Full Review

Joseph Walsh

CineVue

the very way that A Liar's Autobiography has been brought to the big screen saps all the flavour and humour, lacking any of the real bite possessed by one of our most beloved Pythons.

Rated: 1/5

Aug 23, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

A flawed biography of one of the founders of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

Director: Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson, Ben Timlett
Producer: James Greenslade, Meyer Shwarzstein, Mark Sandell
Production Co: Brainstorm Media
Rating: R (Language|Graphic Animated Sequences|Some Violent Images|Strong & Crude Sexual Content)
Genre: Comedy, LGBTQ+, Animation
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 26, 2016
Runtime: 1h 25m

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