The Invention of Lying

It's been a while since I've reviewed anything. Avatar left me so disgusted, I had honestly lost joy in being cynical. I am completely shocked, myself, that The Invention of Lying was the movie that got me back in the game. Allan said that he could tell by the look on my face 5 minutes in that I was going to review it. Here's why..

I rented this movie, because I've been a follower of Ricky Gervais since his role as David Brent in the original British version of The Office.  I wasn't hoping for much.  The movie wasn't very popular, in fact I only remember seeing the trailer a few times.   I have to review this from my personal perspective, because of who I am. Let me lay down a little back story. I am a terrible liar. I do sometimes. I learned that you have to out of tact and to not just be cruel, but often I don't even lie to make myself look better.

Within the first few minutes of the movie I realized that I am not just a crude person to be crude....I just don't lie.  There are also things that could just be left unsaid, as opposed to lied about.  I just say those too.  This movie begins in a world, with very little background, it's simply a place where no one says things they don't mean.  It is a quite harsh world.  Fiction does not even exist for entertainment. Movies are all just actors reading history from a TelePrompTer.  It  begins with Mark, played by Ricky Gervais, going on a date with Anna (Jennifer Garner). She immediately tells him that she is not attracted to him, but fears being alone so will go anyway. He should not expect any sex or even a kiss later in the night.

The next day Mark is fired from his job, which he is quite aware of, and everyone he works with has frankly warned him of.  After having an increasingly terrible day, something happens within his brain, which allows him to say something that "is not". In this world, words for truth and lies do not even exist.  He then finds that he can use this to get out of things, obtain money... basically what you would expect. What I liked about this that people were so used to the truth that anything he said was taken at face value. He didn't even need to be creative with his lies. People would just automatically accept his words as truth.

I expected this to be a movie, which would wear itself out with it's gimmick half way through, the rest of the movie would be spent chasing the girl who wasn't nice enough for him in the first place. She was just pretty.  It took a drastic turn, when in attempts to make someone feel better, Mark invents a place you go after you die.  He then is followed by the entire world.  He invents religion, because it makes people feel happy.  I think that any religious person would and probably should be offended by this. It implies that religion isn't real; that it wouldn't even exist in a world without lies. For a non-religious person, such as myself, this gives me a slightly better view of religion.  It's just a way for people to feel a little better about what happens, when they die, and gives them a reason to be good now.

The Invention of Lying is very consistently funny.  I was really impressed by that.  There are some great actors and cameos: Tina Fey, Ed Norton, John Hodgeman, Martin Starr, Jeffery Tamboor, and Jason Bateman. This is one of the only movies, in which I wasn't bothered that the nice guy was going after the "pretty" (if you can call Jennifer Garner that. Not my style but I'll move on...) but very rude girl. Because no one lied everyone was rude in one way or another, so why not just pick a girl and try to woo her?

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. Gervais left many cliches out. He didn't drop his British accent, which really would have annoyed me. He is just a funny, fat, snub-nosed man, and I like him. It affirmed my belief that the overly polite are probably not thinking better things about you. They probably just aren't telling you.