October 23, 2009: The Invention of Lying
The Invention of Lying had a moderately large advertising campaign, playing off the sometimes-elusive popularity of Ricky Gervais, and leveraging the faces and names of co-stars Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe. It was heartening for me as well to see Louis CK also featured on the posters, since he’s one of my favourite stand-up comedians and it’s good to see him making it bigger, even though he looks like a complete mess in the posters. Gervais hoped to do better here than he did with Ghost Town, and it seems that he did.
This film is the very definition of high-concept. People are simply unable to tell lies, and always tell the truth. Where would that lead? And then, when one man somehow suddenly gains the ability to lie, what powers and what curses will he experience?
The first 1/4 or so of the movie explores and establishes, in an episodic fashion, this alternate reality in which people cannot lie. Men and women on dates plainly state what they are really thinking about each other and about their own lives. People in the workplace are brutally honest about what they think of their co-workers. People on the street comment to each other, mostly disparagingly. Gervais works as a writer in the movie industry, and in a brilliant extension of the concept, movies are all non-fiction celebrity readings of stories of history (since nobody can make up fictional characters or stories, since those would be lies. Get it? I am kicking myself for not noticing whether or not there was any artwork on the walls). Then one day, Gervais suddenly gains the ability to lie, and of course immediate experimentation leads to free money and easy opportunities for sex. This first part of the movie plays out really well.
After that, though, things started to go off the rails for me. I think the core issue is that the idea is really an interesting one to pursue, but it suspends belief too much. We see people walking around in a world which, aside from the lack of lying, is materially otherwise entirely familiar – the same cars, homes, offices, clothes, etc. If people couldn’t lie, could this parallel world really be so similar to the one we know? Could language even be as we know it? The movie stumbles over this point a bit when Gervais realizes there isn’t a word for what he is doing. How would businesses run? How could things not be communist? How would crimes work – if people can’t even tell lies, it doesn’t seem that they could steal (the film includes a humorous flashback of a home burglary gone wrong due to honesty, so we know the writers have at least considered this).
Eventually the movie turns to the topic of religion, which is a logical direction and one in which I’m glad it didn’t pull its punches. How can Gervais not be considered an all-knowing God when he has a power that no other human does? Some of the nonsensical points around religion and faith are laid bare in this strongest part of the movie, a fascinating study of the “man in the sky” and the whole discussion of how he does everything, good and bad, and how that logic doesn’t always add up. Of course, we eventually have to come back around to the core romance story, so things get back on track and Gervais gets the girl, as you knew he had to from the time of their disastrous first date which opens the movie.
I can normally get a bit tired of Gervais’ antics and mannerisms, but it’s mostly not too out of place here considering that the whole movie is completely unrealistic. Cameos and supporting roles by lots of comic actors make every new scene a treat, including the likes of Jonah Hill, Louis CK, Martin Starr (from the Judd Apatow universe), Tina Fey, John Hodgman from The Daily Show, Christopher Guest, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman (I’m on a bit of a Bateman kick lately), and heavyweights and sometime comic actors Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I think I would have to recommend The Invention of Lying, even though it really does have some big holes in it, because it’s a worthwhile concept to explore and many of those holes would be very difficult to close.
Another high concept comedy for us.
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