L'invention du mensonge

In a world where people can only tell the truth, Ricky Gervais creates the lie. What follows this simple concept with great potential is a series of quick fire jokes made funny by the sheer bluntness of the absolute truth. The screenplay is lightly comical but rarely laugh-out-loud funny and continually relies on the same concept.

As the plot progresses, it veers from quick-fire jokes to a parody of religion. On the one hand, this offers an interesting and thought-provoking reflection; however, I found the developing plot to become mildly preachy and irritating to watch. The humour level drops and the religious overtones and romantic subplot overshadow the interesting idea.

Visually, I found the film to be rather drab and dreary. Similarly, I didn't care for the dowdy and monotonous score and soundtrack choices. I understand that these are probably intended to represent a world without fiction, but they make the film a little tedious to watch and don't add anything to the movie. I enjoyed Jenifer Garner's performance as Gervais' love interest which she's plays with harsh yet likable realism, but Gervais' lead performance left me a little cold. In combination with lacklustre screenplay, I was left unimpressed with the utilisation of a potentially hilarious and fascinating concept.

The Invention of Lying is a quiet, simple movie on the surface, but underneath lies a more complex, thought-provoking moral allegory, albeit one that fails to deliver anything truly remarkable. It tries to be clever, but fails to deliver.

5/10.

"The Invention of Lying" begins with a series of truths, which in our world today nobody says because, well, we can lie, but in this world nobody can. It's funny in a very basic way, and it gets old quick. But then, Ricky Gervais discovers how to lie.

Along with Gervais, we learn a lot about society, and we see all the inherent humour. This humour actually has a fair number of levels to it. On one level, humanity is very base, but the great thing about lying is that we actually get to a level where we can find the good in people. This movie is for everybody who has ever been called short, fat or ugly, and for all those people who see that it's always the good looking people who get everything they want in the world. But Gervais is now here to stand up for us, and just let us laugh.

"The Invention of Lying" is filled with one-liners, intelligent wit and the ultimate truth to our world. It's also filled with many recognizable actors, all there to make the movie shinier and brighter. Jennifer Garner at one point tells our hero, "I like the way you see the world." Well, so do I, Mr. Gervais, so do I.

In a world where everyone must tell the truth, one man after being fired and almost evicted is pushed to the limits. His brain does something abnormal, he tells a lie. Not just any lie, the world's first lie. Since no one in this universe has ever heard a lie before, they take it as fact. Now this man has the world at his feet.

It is a clever concept, a clever and more massive spin on Liar Liar, yet that might not be such a good thing. The premise of this film is funny, but it becomes too much of itself and is tiresome after a while. The joke goes on and on, he tells lies, people believe him. In one scene a lie gets him in too deep to dig himself back up and that's where the conflict in this film comes in. Yet one can ask themselves a simple question, why not just lie his way out of it, instead of digging deeper holes.

Gervais is at the lead again, after his feel good comedy Ghost Town, which people decided to skip. This time around he's also behind the camera, yet nothing technical about this film pops out, it plays out like an average comedy, relying on it's one concept. The one concept gets some laughs here and there, but there are never any really laugh out loud moments.

The film has some emotional scenes, that influence the rest of the film. The comedy kind of takes a second step to the theme of religion. Some people may find this irritating. Jennifer Garner plays the romantic lead, who finds Gervais fat and with a stubby nose, not a good match genetically for a marriage and children. Yet they form a friendship, one in which Gervais hopes will blossom into something more. Does it? Well, how do romantic comedies usually work out? Here the outcome doesn't seem too believable. Things happens and people react without really knowing why, this leaves little for character arc.

How do people live in a world with no lies? Well, when you want to watch a film, you go to the theatre. In that theatre you'll see a guy sitting in a chair reciting history. Since, movies are mostly fiction, no one can make one, cause it would be a lie. See where this film goes? A retirement home becomes "A place where old people go to die", so on and so on.

The film does have some really funny cameos. It's mostly the usual comedy round, but there is at least one in which I was so caught off guard that I just couldn't help but laugh. Look out for a cop. Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. play two supporting character, neither are funny.

The film is funny, but not enough to warrant a theatre viewing. This has rental written all over it. It simply cannot stand on it's concept for too long, because it becomes a bit dull. If it were a short, I could enjoy it more.

Ricky Gervais writes, directs and stars in this high concept romantic comedy about a schlub living a sad life in a universe where no person can tell a lie. He becomes the first man to say something that isn't true, and thus is able to become rich and powerful. He can even finally come close to attracting Jennifer Garner, a woman he's had a crush on for a long time. Things go awry, though, when he makes up a story about an omnipotent man in the sky and a happy afterlife to comfort his dying mother. The premise is interesting, but pretty thin. The world created is so unbelievable and the characters so far away from what we know as human that, especially in its final act when it tries to get dramatic, you can't come close to investing in it emotionally. However, the gags are often hilarious, and the cast is quite good (besides its stars, it also has Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Louis CK, Jonah Hill and Jeffrey Tambor, with some really fun cameos by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Bateman and Edward Norton). This isn't anywhere close to the previous year's Gervais vehicle, Ghost Town, which I think deserves to be something of a minor classic in the romantic comedy genre, but it's well worth a rental.

There is a certain re-training of the mind that a film expects of us in order to fully enjoy the place it seeks to take us. This film, in the first act we are taught, in a rather funny way that the world of this film is to say the least - honest. Everyone coldly delivers, whether asked or not - exactly what is on their mind. It takes a good 1/4 of the film to fully understand exactly the world where there is no opposite to truth. And those moments are worth the price of admission alone.

As a viewer I enjoyed the random interactions that a world where truth is embedded in the framework of all social interaction. With no deviation.

By the time Gervais comes across the knowledge that an alternate way of communication exists in "saying what wasn't" we embark on a tale of a man who essentially won the "lying Lottery".

The humour is subtle, the contrast of religious themes are not so, and that may have been the weakest of elements in the film. Sadly those who think there is a single element of disrespect towards religion from within the world of the film are I believe incorrect. While religious digs may have been the impetus for the films creation, from within the film, Mark's character seems to make a clear delineation between an evil lie and a white lie. And his character never seems comfortable for too long with a lie that affects the lives of many.

The film does have a one of the more sweet and quietly powerful scenes where Mark creates an alternate afterlife for his mother. Because I don't view this film through a filter of religious expectation I found this scene to be simply powerful and poignant.

I enjoyed it, as did my partner. We talked the whole way home, and recreated some of the laughs on the way to the car. That is not a lie.