La Vie Belem

British comedian Ricky Gervais rarely disappoints me. His BBC hits The Office and Extras give me the chuckles unlike any other shows. His new film, however, The Invention of Lying does very little to amuse me.

I had really been looking forward to this film and even included it in one of my “Films to Get Excited About” posts because I believed the plot to be hilariously novel. It is, but only until we start getting to the crux of the film.

Gervais is Mark Bellison—pretty much the same overweight loser that he plays in every film except this time he’s a screenwriter and is part of a world that doesn’t have the ability to lie. The required jokes about Mark’s weight and snub nose are made to get the fact that Gervais is not your typical leading man out of the way. We are repeatedly told how unattractive and big of a loser he is (funny considering that Gervais wrote—and directed—the film himself, along with Matthew Robinson), particularly by his love interest Anna (Jennifer Garner), who likes Mark but just can’t seem to get over his chubbiness and snub nose. What’s more, Mark is fired from his job at Lecture Films—a movie studio that essentially makes documentaries because technically fiction doesn’t exist since it’s untruthful—for being the worst screenwriter, a fact that isn’t entirely his fault since he writes about the 14th century, an era that’s mildly depressing (the Black Plague and Feudalism are not chipper topics).

Just when Mark’s life couldn’t get any worse, he is evicted because he only has $300 in his bank account and his rent is $800. When he goes to withdraw the what’s left of his money, the teller informs Mark the bank’s system is down and that he should just tell her how much money is in his account. This is the moment Mark’s life changes because his suddenly struck with a moment of genius: he can “say something that was not,” that is, tell a lie. Since no one fathoms the idea of saying something that isn’t true, the teller believes Mark when he says there are $800 in his account, even when the bank’s system comes back online and she can clearly see he only has $300. After this, Mark realizes he can have anything he wants, including Anna.

Things are looking up for Mark until his mom (Fionnula Flanagan), who’s kept in an Old Folks Home or rather “A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People,” is on the verge of death. In an attempt to comfort her on her deathbed, Mark tells her that when you die there isn’t an “eternity of nothingness” but rather an afterlife filled with your very own mansion, everyone you’ve ever loved, and pretty much anything else spectacular you can imagine. His mom, of course, dies happy believing she’s going off to a better place and the nurses surrounding her believe every word Mark says. What results is a big can of worms where Mark has to basically invent religion, heaven and the “Man in the Sky” that controls everything. Any free will that society had left was stripped by the invention of, not lying but rather, religion. “Nobody,” according to Mark, “listens to what they actually want,” which becomes the crux of this film.

Despite some excellent and pithy cameos from Jason Bateman, Rob Lowe, Stephen Merchant (Gervais’ usual partner in crime), Edward Norton and Tina Fey, the film’s funny is seriously lacking. Gervais has made a career out of making audiences laugh by making them feel uncomfortable, but this film doesn’t measure up to its predecessors. The awkwardness felt at every moment could be funny, and sometimes it is, but really it just makes you want to grimace, such as when Anna finally comes down the stairs to greet Mark who has been waiting for her to get ready and she tells him “I just masturbated.” Um, ok. While the initial premise is engrossing and humorous—that of a world where lying doesn’t exist and only one man can—its ingenuity is compromised by its incomplete exploration of the role of God, religion and free will in society. We are left with the distinct feeling of so what?

Truthfully, not even lying could make this film much better.