The Invention of Lying shows us an alternate world without lying, in which everyone always tells the truth, no matter how blunt it may be. An original idea, the film is directed and written by Matthew Robinson and Ricky Gervais, with Gervais also playing the film's main role of Mark Bellison, the man who invented lying. With its novel premise and some clever trailers, the film seemed to have some comedic promise.
The Invention of Lying, however, fell quite flat of expectations. Sappy scenes, jokes that lacked substantive humor and inconsistency tainted the entire film. And, quite frankly, with such well-known actors, including Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill, the movie should have been able to match their comedic prestige.
The cast features quite a few recognizable faces: Garner (Pearl Harbor, Juno) plays Bellison's superficial, airheaded love interest; Fey (30 Rock, Mean Girls) as his dissatisfied, whiney secretary; Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Extract) as Bellison's mother's doctor; Rob Lowe (Tommy Boy, Thank You For Smoking) as his vain co-worker; comedian Louis C.K. and Hill (Funny People, Superbad) as Bellison's messed up friends; and even John Hodgman (the "I'm a PC" guy) as the minor character of a priest.
Each actor provided the movie with a fun, entertaining character, but none managed to keep the audience laughing for long. There are recurring depressing scenes accented by sad music, which really put a damper on what little comedy that could be found in the film. Although it may be fitting for this world where many tend to speak their minds honestly, it's not the way to sell a comedy. Not helping the film's attempts at being funny was a wordless, sappy scene in which Bellison uses his "invention" and lies to try to help and comfort unhappy people he met earlier on in the movie.
The funniest jokes were probably those that parodied Christianity and its "Man in the Sky," despite their provocative pokes at the sensitive subject of religion. The images of Moses and Jesus were funny, but seemed a cheap way to get laughs - then again, organized religion doesn't exist in this alternate reality.
In terms of overall implication, the usual morals of "money and looks aren't everything" were present, giving the movie a fairly predictable ending. But, at the same time, the writers were quite inconsistent with the direction they wanted to take. In the beginning of The Invention of Lying, everyone is blurting out their opinions no matter how outlandish or offensive, but the conclusion seems to indicate that at least Gardner's character, Anna, is able to keep things to herself. These kinds of annoyances were what kept the film from being enjoyable as a whole. While The Invention of Lying has a strong cast and interesting premise, it fails to harness all that potential into actual entertainment.
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