Hawkeye Reviews: The Invention of Lying
“The Invention of Lying” is a film you will know whether you are going to like or not within the first five minutes. There are those that will love its one-joke premise and continually laugh at it, while everyone else has to sit through this one joke over and over, not laughing once, until the film finally comes to its conclusion.
It’s set in a world that has never learned the ability to lie, so basically everyone speaks the truth all of the time, no matter how harsh it may be. Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is a screenwriter for Lecture Films, where they only make movies based on fact because to write any fiction would be to lie. He goes out on a date with Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) who immediately tells him that he is not attractive and that she doesn’t think the date will go well. This is confirmed later on when she tells him that, because he is unattractive (short and fat with a snubbed nose), financially insecure, and not in her class, she won’t date him again.
Having lost his job at the studio and facing eviction, one day at the bank, he tells the world’s first lie by saying he has more money in his back account than he actually does. The teller believes him, says that their records must be wrong, and gives him the money. This new ability changes his life dramatically, giving him the chance to make up new screenplays, claiming they are true, as well as becoming rich at a casino because everyone believes everything he’s saying. Despite all of these things going so well, he still finds that he can’t get the one thing he wants most, Anna.
It sounds like such a great premise, doesn’t it? No one can lie. Boundless potential to tell a great and interesting story. It’s a shame that the story persists on this one-note joke throughout most of the film, especially since the joke is just not funny. So, we basically get treated to one character insulting another, because everyone has to tell the truth (and because, apparently, nobody has anything nice to say to anyone in this world).
The film is a complete mess of tones and genres. It starts off trying to be a comedy, which starts the one-joke premise. It then tries to move on to being more dramatic as Mark’s mother dies, leading into the next section where Mark becomes a kind of prophet, in a sense, creating religion, and even resembling Jesus near the end of the film. Finally, it tries to be a romantic-comedy intertwined among the other genres the film tries to explore.
None of these genres end up meshing well together, leading to several awkward tone changes through the film. There are parts where it is trying to be heavily dramatic, but undercuts itself by trying to continue the same flat comedic tone it attempts from the beginning. There could have been four different movies here, but instead, it tries to make them all one, not giving enough time to any of them for the parts of the story to develop.
Speaking of development, the only character even given the opportunity to develop is Mark himself. His character arc is alright for the most part, eventually figuring out that, obviously, lying won’t get him everything he wants. As for all of the other characters, they completely lack development because the premise forces them to stay the same throughout the film, accepting everything that Mark’s says as the truth. This also gives the world that the film is trying to create a rather flat feeling.
Anna herself was a bit of an oddity. We’re supposed to believe that the only reason she wouldn’t make love to or marry Mark is because he has the wrong genetics, which would cause them to have short, fat children with snubbed noses. To avoid this, the film creates the situation of her possibly marrying a co-worker of Mark’s, Brad (Rob Lowe), a man who supposedly has the best genetic match with Anna. Apparently, aside from not figuring out lying, they haven’t figured out emotional attraction either.
This situation eventually comes down to the predictable ending that we know must occur, causing the audience to have to wait for it, while sitting through the rest of those awkward tone changes. This really could have been something special had the writers not tried to pack it with the same joke over and over. The best humor (at least in this critic’s opinion) comes from spontaneous situations that seem natural. “The Invention of Lying” insists upon this one joke of everyone telling the truth and insists that it’s funny when it’s not, making it feel very unnatural. It’s sad that the funniest thing about this film is seeing the “PC” guy show up as a priest at the end. That says quite a lot.
2/4 stars.
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