The Invention of Lying

Release Year: 2009

Director: Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson

Review:With a film written by and starring Ricky Gervais and with a high concept plot, I had high expectations.  The premise is brilliant.  In a parallel world everything is pretty much the same, only no one knows how to lie.  That is, until the day Gervais' character discovers that he can say things that aren't the truth, and his exploits of this new found ability.  Its kind of the inverse 'Liar Liar'.  It's an interesting hook, but one that falls apart rather quickly.

 

Initially there are some funny jokes riffing off the fact that everyone must be completely honest.  This gets old fairly quickly however, and there isn't really all that much to stand on after these jokes go stale.  There's a constant battle of trying to make everything make sense in this reality where lying doesn't exist.  While you can take a leap of faith and just go with the world's reality, there are some conflicts in what makes sense in the world itself, and I constantly found myself questioning whether or not something constituted as a lie, or how someone could accidentally lie, etc.  All of this could be forgiven if it was funny enough, but while it was mildly amusing, it really doesn't deliver.

Towards the end it does take an interesting turn, where the issue of religion comes into play, and how Gervais invents God with a lie.  It brings under scrutiny all religion and parodies it at the same time.  While I liked that the film took this turn, it felt a bit out of place and it spent way to much time on it.  It felt drawn out and tedious rather than funny or thought provoking.  The film completely ran out of steam about half way through and just never really went anywhere.  I came away with a general sense of contentment but it wasn't anything memorable or even mindlessly funny.

Rating: 4/5