When I first heard about The Invention Of Lying, I figured it would just be another lame, but mildly diverting flick from yet another so-called "master of comedy" that the entertainment media is always ramming into our collective face. Like the various Adam Sandler/Jim Carrey/Will Ferrell comedies, which are largely interchangeable in both their middling humor and moronic plots, I figured that The Invention Of Lying would just be a passable 100 minutes with a mild laugh or two, nothing more, nothing less. And, by and large, that’s what you get at first, as the concept is established that the hero, a sad-sack writer named Mark (Ricky Gervais) lives in a fantasy world where lying is unheard of. People can only tell the truth, no matter how blunt, harsh or embarrassing it is.
But, in the best tradition of these movies, Mark somehow starts making up
stuff--he begins to lie--and when he does, he improves his lot in life vastly,
because people can’t help but take him at his word. Yet he still can’t get Anna
(Jennifer Gardner), the girl of his dreams, to fall in love with him because he’s
somewhat ugly looking. Mark finds out that, at the end of the day, it's all about having good genetics. See what I mean? So far, so bland. Nice and pleasant,
nothing more. But something really cool and subversive occurs when Mark visits
his mother on her death bed. The old woman is fearful of dying, of just fading
away into nothingness, forever--until Mark comforts her with a made up story
about how she will essentially wind up in heaven, along with all of her loved
ones who passed on previously.
It’s a sweet, poignant scene--but one that provides complications for Mark. The
doctor and nurses, all overhearing Mark’s fantasy about an afterlife, are
extremely curious and want to know more. Soon, word spreads like wildfire, and
Mark--facing a large crowd of people outside his house who are desperate for
knowledge--makes up a set of rules, which he tells people were given to him by a
great man who lives in the sky. Thinking that the sheets of paper which he wrote
these tenets on are too flimsy, Mark rewrites them on the backs of a pair of
empty pizza boxes. And so, much like Moses, Mark goes out to spread the word in
a hysterically funny scene where the nit-picking crowd starts asking him one
question too many.
It’s at this point that The Invention Of Lying truly takes off, becoming a very
funny--and pointed--satire, which argues about how we need to find our own way
in life, and to try and make the most of it as much as we can, because, in the
end, this life is all we really have. Gervais surrounds himself with a great
cast, including some surprising cameos from some of the most unlikeliest people
you’d expect to see in a comedy (Phillip Seymor Hoffman and Edward Norton, for example,). If you’re deeply religious and easily offended, then it goes
without saying that perhaps it might be best if you avoided this one. But if you
have an open mind, and are looking for a truly funny comedy that’s not one of
the bland, Sandler/Carrey/Ferrell clones that gets rolled out of the Hollywood
comedy factory on a regular basis, then give The Invention Of Lying a try. It’s
an unassuming little film that’s truly a revelation.
--SF
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