The Invention of Lying

I spent the first ten or so minutes of The Invention of Lying with a goofy grin on my face. I was in the hands of one of my favorite comic geniuses, Ricky Gervais, and the premise was delicious--we are shown a society where people have not evolved (Gervais' word) the ability to lie. Therefore there are no untruths of any kind--no flattery, no fiction. Entire industries have taken on completely different complexions. Advertising, for instance. Coke puts on commercials that warn that drinking the product can lead to obesity, and says simply, "It's famous." Pepsi counters with, "When you can't get coke." The film business centers around dry documentaries about history, hosted by academic types about topics like "The Invention of the Fork" or "Napoleon, 1812-1813."

Gervais plays a screenwriter for the studio, Lecture Films, but he's stuck with writing about the 1300s, which means he's always writing about the black plague. He pines for a beautiful girl, Jennifer Garner, who goes out with him but dutifully tells him that he is not attractive enough for him. The next morning he gets fired from his job.

So far, so good. But as the film went on the smile went away and I was crestfallen to realize that Gervais' first film script ends up being completely toothless. He takes that great premise (a nursing home has a huge sign that says, "Sad Place for Hopeless Old People") and turns it into a conventional romantic comedy. This, despite it's audacious take on religion, which could have been scathing satire but instead is just pablum.

When Gervais' character realizes he can lie (there isn't even the word "lie," or "truth," so he has trouble defining what he does to friends) he conjures up a whopper: there is a man in the sky who controls everything, and after we die we go to a wonderful place where we will see again everyone we loved and get our own mansion (and get free ice cream all day). If we do three bad things, we go to a bad place. All of this he has written down in ten bullet points on two pizza boxes, a clever gag. But this zing at religion doesn't have the bite of Bill Maher, instead it comes off as a half-baked idea. So the world of the film has existed entirely without theism until Gervais' pizza box moment. What would a society like that be? We only skim the surface in this film, and it settles for Hollywood glibness. I think a discussion over beers after the film would be more interesting that what Gervais comes up with.

The film also completely avoids the other profession that would be completely different if truth were mandatory, politics. I guess that would necessitate an entirely different film.

Aside from the script taking the easy way out, I have to agree with Manohla Dargis in her review--this film looks terrible. Gervais co-directs with Matthew Robinson, who has no other credits. Gervais has directed TV, but The Invention of Lying has no visual style and often has incompetent camera work and poor editing, with comic beats lasting far too long. I also found some of the scriptwriting lazy. After Gervais' character realizes he can lie, he sets about making people's lives better. We see him visiting characters we've seen before as miserable wretches, but he tells them something and they get happy all of a sudden. What he tells them we don't know, because the soundtrack is a zippy pop song. I'd rather have heard what he said, which isn't immediately obvious.

For fans of The Office and Extras this film has to be a disappointment, although I am interested to see what Gervais comes up with next. I would prefer he steer clear from rom-com templates and try something more daring.