Published: Friday, October 2, 2009
‘Lying’: Gervais is excellent at telling fibs
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Associated Press/Warner Bros., Sam Urdank
Jennifer Garner (left) and Ricky Gervais in “The Invention of Lying,” which Gervais also co-wrote and directed.
Although Ricky Gervais has appeared in films before, including last year’s underseen sleeper “Ghost Town,” the creator-star of “The Office” and “Extras” hasn’t been in a movie he wrote himself.
Until now. “The Invention of Lying” is co-written and co-directed by Gervais (in tandem with Matthew Robinson) and he takes the lead role.
It’s built on a swallow-it-whole premise: The world as we know it exists without any lying.
No one has ever dissembled, fibbed or told a fictional story. The world is incredibly bland.
Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a screenwriter for a movie company that makes films about historical events.
He’s on the verge of getting fired and his first date with dream girl Anna (beaming Jennifer Garner, just right) has gone badly — although in a world where people say exactly what they think, he’s probably accustomed to being told he’s a pudgy loser.
The film’s gimmick is that Mark is the first human being to conceive of telling a lie, which means he can easily convince anybody of anything. And get whatever he wants.
This goes to its logical conclusion: With his mother (Fionnula Flanagan) on her deathbed, Mark invents the idea that there is an afterlife in which you live forever and reunite with everyone you’ve ever loved. Plus you get a mansion.
Word of this gets out and Mark becomes the world’s first religious figure, a twist that finds its hilarious peak in his Moseslike delivery of dogma that he’s pasted onto two pizza boxes.
Thus “The Invention of Lying” morphs from an amusing sitcom to a sneaky satire (part early Woody Allen, part Monty Python) of the reasons people need to believe in fictions.
Some able comedy hands are around to help along this premise, including Tina Fey, Louis C.K., Rob Lowe and Jason Bateman.
Gervais shows off less of the improvisatory genius that has made his name and more of a straight acting side.
This produces fewer manic highs than, say, an average episode of the British “Office.”
And the film has no visual sense at all, even if you acknowledge that some of its blah look is intentionally conveying a colorless society.
But the laughs combined with a bittersweet tone makes for something original, and the movie’s not at all a safe bet. Can’t wait to see what Gervais comes up with next.
“The Invention of Lying”
Ricky Gervais delivers a genuinely original film about a society in which no one has ever told a lie, until his character conceives of one. Soon he becomes the world’s first religious figure, a development that twists this funny sitcom into a bittersweet little comedy about the reasons people need to invent fictions. With Jennifer Garner.
Rated: PG-13 for language, subject matter
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Meridian, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
Until now. “The Invention of Lying” is co-written and co-directed by Gervais (in tandem with Matthew Robinson) and he takes the lead role.
It’s built on a swallow-it-whole premise: The world as we know it exists without any lying.
No one has ever dissembled, fibbed or told a fictional story. The world is incredibly bland.
Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a screenwriter for a movie company that makes films about historical events.
He’s on the verge of getting fired and his first date with dream girl Anna (beaming Jennifer Garner, just right) has gone badly — although in a world where people say exactly what they think, he’s probably accustomed to being told he’s a pudgy loser.
The film’s gimmick is that Mark is the first human being to conceive of telling a lie, which means he can easily convince anybody of anything. And get whatever he wants.
This goes to its logical conclusion: With his mother (Fionnula Flanagan) on her deathbed, Mark invents the idea that there is an afterlife in which you live forever and reunite with everyone you’ve ever loved. Plus you get a mansion.
Word of this gets out and Mark becomes the world’s first religious figure, a twist that finds its hilarious peak in his Moseslike delivery of dogma that he’s pasted onto two pizza boxes.
Thus “The Invention of Lying” morphs from an amusing sitcom to a sneaky satire (part early Woody Allen, part Monty Python) of the reasons people need to believe in fictions.
Some able comedy hands are around to help along this premise, including Tina Fey, Louis C.K., Rob Lowe and Jason Bateman.
Gervais shows off less of the improvisatory genius that has made his name and more of a straight acting side.
This produces fewer manic highs than, say, an average episode of the British “Office.”
And the film has no visual sense at all, even if you acknowledge that some of its blah look is intentionally conveying a colorless society.
But the laughs combined with a bittersweet tone makes for something original, and the movie’s not at all a safe bet. Can’t wait to see what Gervais comes up with next.
“The Invention of Lying”
Ricky Gervais delivers a genuinely original film about a society in which no one has ever told a lie, until his character conceives of one. Soon he becomes the world’s first religious figure, a development that twists this funny sitcom into a bittersweet little comedy about the reasons people need to invent fictions. With Jennifer Garner.
Rated: PG-13 for language, subject matter
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Meridian, Metro, Oak Tree, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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