Ricky Gervais is one of the funniest men in the world. He created, wrote and starred in The Office, a revolutionary TV show and when he speaks at award shows the audience laughs, and not the pretend, acknowledging-the-joke-laugh but a real, that-was-actually-funny laugh. The Invention of Lying is Gervais’s newest project, one that he once again created, wrote and starred in and it too is a hit. The premise is original, the jokes new, the acting well done; in short the movie works even with certain given clichés.
The premise of The Invention of Lying is believe it or not about the invention of lying. It is an alternate universe where no one in the world can lie, or even knows what a lie is. In fact for some unexplainable reason not only do people lie but they go out of their way to tell the truth. Pepsi’s slogan is “for when they don’t have coke”, retirement homes are called “A sad place where old people go to die”, doctors tell you your diagnosis with added details. It is in this world that Mark (Gervais) tells the first lie and soon, with his power, he is living the high life. Unfortunately however, his ability cannot get him true love or save his dying mother and that is where the romantic portion as well as religious musings enters the movie.
That’s right romance and religion; those of you who watched the trailer are probably surprised because the movie is advertised as a straight-up comedy. It is however, a romantic comedy with dramatic portions, just to be one hundred percent up front. Hopefully this will not dissuade anyone from going because this movie is worth watching. To repeat from earlier, Ricky Gervais is one of the funniest men in the world, and this shows in The Invention of Lying.
The cast is star-studded including Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill and Tina Fey, and all of them are impressive. Jonah Hill in particular was funny, playing a suicidal character who openly conversed about his attempts to kill himself. The religious sub-plot is also amusing, with the population pestering Mark about what exactly constitutes as a sin. Where the movie gets frustrating however, is the clichés it does fall into. How many romantic comedies have resolved with a wedding scene where the man begs the soon-to-be-married-woman to marry him instead (I can think of five just off the top of my head)? And on top of that the movie only ever resolves the romantic plot ignoring the lingering questions of religion.
Overall Rating: S-A-B-R-e
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