Title: The invention of Lying
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill
Studio: Warner Bros
Release Date: 2nd Octrober 2009 (UK)
Running Time: 100 minutes approx.
Tside Rating T T T

I could say that this film is the funniest and best film of all time.

But that would be a lie.

The portly comedian is not your conventional Hollywood leading man, but after his role in Ghostown, he is back for more with his second American romcom, The Invention of Lying.

The ambition is definitely there, as Gervais attempts to star, co-write and co-direct the movie.

The comedy’s original premise is a world where everyone always tells the truth and nobody lies.

However, there is no peaceful society that one might believe if everyone had to tell the truth and be honest.  The people in the film come across as rude and selfish at the expense of a laugh.

They speak their of how much it may hurt others, because they can only say the truth.

That is until Gervais’ character, Mark, tells the first lie, or because there is no word for a lie, saying “that which is not”.

His first act of dishonesty is requesting more money than what is in his account, with the teller assuming the computer has made a mistake about his finances.

The hilarity of the first half-hour is clever, creative, and full of imaginative wit that never fails to make you laugh out loud or at least put a smile on your face.

To his satisfaction, lying enables him to attract a beautiful young woman (Jennifer Garner) who previously turned him down for a second date, on the grounds that he is short, fat and snub-nosed.

He tells his mother she’s going to Heaven, and is hailed as a prophet after telling everyone there is a man in the sky.

However, the film becomes less engaging as he tries to bring a deaper meaning to his character, which for Gervais is not an easy thing to do as he tries to conform to the romcom stereotype.

Because of the coarseness of the characters and how gullible they seem to be, it can be hard to care for them sometimes, including the leading lady Jennifer Garner.

The chemistry between the two tends to fall flat, as Gervais pines for Jennifer, while she dismisses his affections for a guy with ‘good genes’.

There is some comic mileage with the jokes featuring honest advertising such as describing coke as brown sugary water, and the Pepsi slogan “When there is no Coke”.

Eventually, with no way of stretching the concept any further, the film gets all sentimental and shows it can be acceptable to love an unattractive men, despite his snub-nose. And in that lies the real truth.

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