Inspired Lying Stretches the Truth
In a world where lying does not exist and everyone constantly word vomits nothing but the truth, struggling Lecture Films screenwriter Marc Bellison (Ricky Gervais) has discovered something amazing. After losing his job and on the verge of being evicted from his apartment, he realizes that if he says something that is false no one notices. Better, they’re going to believe the thing he has said, no matter how outlandish it might be, and treat it like a fact even though they are anything but.
Jennifer Garner and Ricky Gervais in Warner Bros' The Invention of Lying
But having a gift for fiction isn’t all its cracked up to be. Sure he’s suddenly rich and famous, his treatise on “the Man in the Sky” who controls everything happening on the Earth and holds the key to a mansion-filled afterlife captivating the planet, but if he still can’t win the woman of his dreams Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) than what’s the point? A life without love really isn’t worth living, and that’s one truth Marc simply cannot change even by lying.
For a good thirty minutes or so, The Invention of Lying is arguably the funniest comedy I’ve seen this year. Co-written and co-directed by Gervais and Matthew Robinson, the early portions of this movie are simply sensational. The process of setting up this alternate reality ripped apart my funny bone, the scenes with Marc and Anna going on a truly fruitless date positively inspired. The filmmakers don’t miss a single thing, even the commercials reflecting a surrealistic honesty the likes of which boggle the mind.
Unfortunately, the movie just can’t maintain that sort of momentum. About the moment Marc reveals supposed inside information about the hereafter and then begins to grow a heavy conscience things slow down to a virtual crawl. What was really clicking in a sort of Albert Brooks meets Woody Allen sort of way suddenly runs out of steam, the laughs still there just now fewer and much further between.
I can’t quite put my finger on what the problem is. Gervais the actor is certainly dialed in, his engaging performance easily the film’s heart and soul. The issues I do have all revolve around pacing and tone. Where the movie hits both perfectly at the start by the midway point the exact opposite is true. The momentum flatlines and things start moving in fits and starts instead of full speed ahead. It’s a bizarre mystery, and by the time Marc opens the door in full Son of the Man in the Sky regalia I was starting to get a little bit bored.
Still, there is a warmth I responded to, the final act so tender and life-affirming I was almost brought to tears. I also loved the supporting performances, both Garner and Louis C.K. hitting their marks with precision. The two have great chemistry with the deadpan star, and even when the film starts running on empty just the sight of this absurd trio was enough to bring a smile to my face and force me to giggle.
Last year the wonderfully funny Ghost Town hit theaters and attempted to make the superbly talented Gervais a Hollywood star only to meet with somewhat surprising audience indifference. While The Invention of Lying is a bit more inspired and definitely a lot more original, thanks to hiccups in tone and slow pace I can’t help but feel it’s going to meet with a similar fate at the box office.
Pity, because even with my reservation Gervais does try something different, and when his movie provokes laughter it is flat-out the funniest comedy I’ve seen this year. But it plays better as a short than it does as a feature and as much as I’d like to say it’s wonderful I simply cannot tell a lie, the funnyman’s directorial debut a scattershot affair that unfortunately comes up a wee bit short.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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