Film Reviews

The Invention of Lying

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jason Bateman
• Details: US/100mins (15A)

High Concept comedies can be hit-and-miss affairs. For every Superbad (horny teens go on a quest to buy alcohol for a house party and chaos ensues) there's a Yes Man (a negative guy turns positive and chaos ensues); for every The Hangover (a Las Vegas stag goes badly awry and chaos ensues) there's a The Invention Of Lying (in a world where no one can lie, one guy can, and chaos ensues). This is the second time Gervais has starred in such a comedy (Ghost Town saw his misanthrope help people, and chaos ensues) but he's also pitched in with two Night at the Museum movies (museum models come alive, and chaos ensues). The problem with High Concept comedies is that, yes, they're great ideas but the ideas can run out of steam very quickly if there isn't enough heart to keep the movie ticking over. In The Invention of Lying, the gag is old by the twenty-minute mark and there's not a lot to engage the audience thereafter.
Everybody tells the truth in the world of The Invention of Lying, co-written and co-directed by Gervais, and the truth is always delivered with brutal honesty. We first meet Gervais' Mark, a screenwriter for Lecture Films, as he arrives for a date with Jennifer Garner's Anna: Mark tells Anna that he's about to lose his job and he isn't rich; Anna tells Mark that he's fat and ugly and she won't be having sex with him. The honesty is expected. This is how people are with each other in this world. The date, and the movie, follows these lines, until Mark decides that he's not going to tell the truth anymore - he's going to "say something that isn't" - and his life changes overnight. Everyone is taking his fibs as gospel but, when Mark tells a porky pie about 'the man in the sky' who controls everything, he inadvertently invents religion and is hounded for answers.
Gervais fans will be happy to know that Gervais is the Gervais they know and love here, with all the awkward stop-start and unfinished sentences that are his trademark. This comedy throws up some nice ticklers, like honest advertising: 'Coke - it's a bit sweet', 'Pepsi - when they don't have coke' but the joke - and it's a one-joke movie - isn't strong enough to sustain 100 minutes. It then tries to break out of its shackles with Gervais as a Jesus figure. This is a great idea with lots of wiggle room but it's soon forgotten about when the movie is shoehorned into lazy rom-com territory. The rom-com element struggles to work, however. Anna isn't a nice person, rejecting Mark because his genes would give her "fat, snub-nosed children" (where the movie flirts with A Brave New World, another idea that is forgotten about as soon at it's brought up). It's tough to root for Gervais when his quest is to land someone whose personality is that ugly. Her attraction to Rob Lowe's smarmy (what else?) writer is another attempt to give the proceedings some drama. No dice.
The Invention of Lying is dosed with cameos, none of which, with the exception of a coke-addled cop, are all that funny. This was a great idea for a comedy, but The Invention of Lying frustratingly turns out to be average.

Review by Gavin Burke