Cast: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Jeffrey Tambor.
Imagine a world where everybody is ruthlessly honest: you arrive for a date only to be informed that you are a huge disappointment; and then your receptionist tells you that the thought of coming into work every morning makes her skin crawl. Well this is the world of Ricky Gervais’ debut feature, ‘The Invention of Lying’.
Our beleaguered and hopeless host in this quirky alternate reality is a “chubby, snub-nosed loser” called Mark (Ricky Gervais). Mark is a lonely, unspectacular man who finds life in a world that lacks the comforting veil of insincerity quite testing. That all changes when Mark, having been fired and threatened with eviction, is driven to an earth-shattering discovery… the concept of lying!
I’m sure you can all guess what happens next: Mark becomes extremely rich and turns his attention to winning over the woman he is infatuated with (Jennifer Garner’s loopy but stunning, Anna). As Mark enjoys his ill-gotten gains, we await the timely arrival of hubris, and Anna’s discover of his ploy, thus propelling us into a ‘dramatic’ third act where he finally learns the error of his ways and wins her back (yawn).
Well I am pleased to report that this is not the route Gervais, and collaborator Matthew Robinson, take. An unexpected turn arrives when Mark, desperate to comfort his dying mother, pretends that there is a pleasant and eternal ‘afterlife’. News spreads fast, and Mark is transformed into a global prophet overnight. The world is changed irrevocably; but while everybody else seems content, Mark finds himself alone and without the solace of ignorance.
This is an infinitely more interesting way of exploring the consequences of lying, and it also provides scope for some classic, caustic, ‘Gervais’ humour regarding the ideas of religion and the stupefying ignorance of modern society. If that all sounds a bit heavy, I promise you it is not… it is really quite funny.
Even the ‘Anna’ storyline, seemingly so formulaic, is at least given a fresh perspective due to the uncomfortable frankness of the characters. The heart-breaking honesty – a point of humour for so much of the film – facilitates a raw and sincere account of why so many people end up in relationships that don’t make them happy (while the people that could make them happy remain alone).
There may be a few too many cheap gags at the expense of the ‘no lying’ concept. A Pepsi advert reads ‘Pepsi: For when they don’t serve Coke’, a lady returns to the dinner table proclaiming the “biggest poop of her life”, etcetera, etcetera. And while some elements of the storytelling are interesting and new, there is no covering up for the fact that the general narrative is one that we have seen a million times before.
Another glaring fault is the virtual absence of Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. Every great rom-com needs a ‘buddy’ to provide extra comic relief; so to under-use two of the finest comic actors in America is criminal. There are a host of star cameos in this film (watch out for Ed Norton as a coke-sniffing cop and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman as a clumsy barman), but it is a shame to have to demote Hill and C.K. to this category when they could have done so much more.
To summarise: this is not a particularly original film – you may not feel shocked or compelled and your breath probably won’t be taken away – but it is an uplifting, genuinely funny, and fairly fresh debut from one of our finest comedic talents.
Imagine a world where everybody is ruthlessly honest: you arrive for a date only to be informed that you are a huge disappointment; and then your receptionist tells you that the thought of coming into work every morning makes her skin crawl. Well this is the world of Ricky Gervais’ debut feature, ‘The Invention of Lying’.
Our beleaguered and hopeless host in this quirky alternate reality is a “chubby, snub-nosed loser” called Mark (Ricky Gervais). Mark is a lonely, unspectacular man who finds life in a world that lacks the comforting veil of insincerity quite testing. That all changes when Mark, having been fired and threatened with eviction, is driven to an earth-shattering discovery… the concept of lying!
I’m sure you can all guess what happens next: Mark becomes extremely rich and turns his attention to winning over the woman he is infatuated with (Jennifer Garner’s loopy but stunning, Anna). As Mark enjoys his ill-gotten gains, we await the timely arrival of hubris, and Anna’s discover of his ploy, thus propelling us into a ‘dramatic’ third act where he finally learns the error of his ways and wins her back (yawn).
Well I am pleased to report that this is not the route Gervais, and collaborator Matthew Robinson, take. An unexpected turn arrives when Mark, desperate to comfort his dying mother, pretends that there is a pleasant and eternal ‘afterlife’. News spreads fast, and Mark is transformed into a global prophet overnight. The world is changed irrevocably; but while everybody else seems content, Mark finds himself alone and without the solace of ignorance.
This is an infinitely more interesting way of exploring the consequences of lying, and it also provides scope for some classic, caustic, ‘Gervais’ humour regarding the ideas of religion and the stupefying ignorance of modern society. If that all sounds a bit heavy, I promise you it is not… it is really quite funny.
Even the ‘Anna’ storyline, seemingly so formulaic, is at least given a fresh perspective due to the uncomfortable frankness of the characters. The heart-breaking honesty – a point of humour for so much of the film – facilitates a raw and sincere account of why so many people end up in relationships that don’t make them happy (while the people that could make them happy remain alone).
There may be a few too many cheap gags at the expense of the ‘no lying’ concept. A Pepsi advert reads ‘Pepsi: For when they don’t serve Coke’, a lady returns to the dinner table proclaiming the “biggest poop of her life”, etcetera, etcetera. And while some elements of the storytelling are interesting and new, there is no covering up for the fact that the general narrative is one that we have seen a million times before.
Another glaring fault is the virtual absence of Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. Every great rom-com needs a ‘buddy’ to provide extra comic relief; so to under-use two of the finest comic actors in America is criminal. There are a host of star cameos in this film (watch out for Ed Norton as a coke-sniffing cop and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman as a clumsy barman), but it is a shame to have to demote Hill and C.K. to this category when they could have done so much more.
To summarise: this is not a particularly original film – you may not feel shocked or compelled and your breath probably won’t be taken away – but it is an uplifting, genuinely funny, and fairly fresh debut from one of our finest comedic talents.
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