The Invention of Lying
Director: Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Jeffrey Tambor and Tina Fey
DVD release: 31 March 2010
Rated: M
Ricky's pants on fire
In a world where
everyone is brutally honest, the liar is king. So Ricky Gervais (Ghost
Town) would have us believe in this whimsical romantic fable. Hollywood
seems to have taken the British comedian of The Office to heart,
letting him again have his way with his latest film. In fact Gervais appears
in just about every scene and it greatly depends on him for its appeal.
With
an original and clever concept, The Invention of Lying takes
place in an alternative reality, where lying in any form is totally unknown.
Everyone is brutally honest, often blurting out truths others would not
wish to hear. We enter this odd-ball world with Ricky Gervais’s
dead pan voice-over introducing his character and setting up the plot.
He’s a sad loser called Mark, a screenwriter of dismal films about
the plague. Entertainment on TV consists of factual documentaries because
fiction isn’t even considered. But Mark discovers he has the ability
to lie, which leads to unexpected fame and fortune.
Every word spoken in this world is taken as absolute truth. A rest home
for the aged is named ‘A Sad Place of Hopeless Old People’
and a snooty waiter loudly tells Mark when he takes his attractive new
date Anna (Jennifer Garner) to a restaurant, ‘You’re not in
her class’. In trying to comfort his dying mother’s fear of
death, he makes up a story about the Man in the Sky, and how she’ll
happily live in a mansion with her friends for eternity.
The story gets out and becomes gospel to the populace, making Mark a celebrity
and God’s spokesman on Earth. However lying isn’t helping
him win Anna, the woman of his dreams. Anna seems intent on marrying Brad
Kessler (Rob Lowe), a handsome self-idolising screenplay writer and rival
to Mark.
The film is solidly build around Gervais and his self-deprecating humour.
In the latter part, the ingenious plot gets a bit sudsy with TV soap.
Anna’s so pitifully shallow - her main concern being to find a partner
with the best genes for her baby - you have wonder why Mark bothers at
all. The funniest scenes are earlier, especially the sequence where Mark
reads his home-spun gospel like Moses off two tablets made of Pizza Hut
boxes to an enthralled crowd. Does one detect a small payola deal here?
Yet this comedy doesn’t quite hit the mark; which I say without
knocking Gervais, who performs with that delightful hesitant delivery
so much part of his satire. Also there’s the bonus of cameo appearances
by famed performers all putting in their dollar’s worth to help
Ricky. Such generosity deserves praise; especially Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Edward Norton and Christopher Guest. Other comic notables in the cast
are Tina Fey, Louis C. K, and Jonah Hill.
Perhaps the problem lies with Gervais sharing direction and writing with
Matthew Robinson. There are moments when he’s quite brilliant as
he can be, but regrettably the wheels wobble in the last act verging uncomfortably
on schmaltz. The bouncy pop music track helps the pace, but is offset
by indifferent camerawork and production values not aiming for the stars.
To sum up, The Invention of Lying provides modest entertainment
with Gervais comfortable in his element as the unlikely overweight snub-nosed
hero. His particular droll style will appeal to his many fans, no doubt
happy with his extended screen time. At least the plot is original and
there are some laughs.
John Bale