INVENTION OF LYING, THE

Rating: 4

THE INVENTION OF LYING is a wildly funny flick that never sacrifices its considerable humor, nor its even more considerable acuity when it comes to parsing human nature. A world without falsehood, or even a word for it, or for truth, for that matter, is the conceit at work, and co-writer and star Ricky Gervais is fearless in exploring the finer nuances as well as the obvious schtick.
He’s Mark, a loser with a weight problem and a snub nose. It’s the looks that will cause the greatest conflict of the story, but it’s his mind that sets it all in motion. A particularly bad day in which he is fired, evicted, and dumped by Anna, the woman (Jennifer Garner) on whom he has been crushing for years, leads to a mental breakdown of sorts. When he goes to the bank to withdraw his last $300 to rent a truck to haul his worldly goods out of his home, it suddenly occurs to him, as it hasn’t to the whole of humanity, that he can make up a number to give the teller and she will believe him. He does, she does, and he’s off to make his fortune by doing what no one has done before, fib. It’s a dream come true, or would be for a man of lesser moral fiber. Telling the most beautiful woman he comes across on the street that they must have sex or the world with end turns into a revelation, but not the kind he thought he wanted. Neither is toying with his pals about what his name really is or the nature of his occupation or ethnicity. In fact, and this is the film’s genius, by being able to lie, he comes to realize as no one else in his world possibly can, the value of honesty as a choice, not a compulsion, and lying as an act of compassion, although one that has predictable complications.
That world is one not just where people tell the truth, but do so compulsively. There are no polite silences, there is also no imagination, and no empathy. Mark toils at Lecture Films, an award-winning studio that produces blockbuster films that involve a man sitting in a chair and recounting the invention of the fork, or Napoleon from 1812-1814. Mark, true to his heretofore loser status, had been stuck writing for the 14th century. Now, unfettered by the facts of the period, he uses his new talent to make the century of Black Death an action-adventure-sci-fi-romance. He also uses that unfettering to make prospect of death more palatable for someone afraid of the endless nothingness. That last, which gets out of hand once word gets out, offers the opportunity for a brilliant precis on where nitpicking people can make religion go so very, very wrong.
Where Gervais and co-writer Matthew Robinson (one of many piquant cameos) get it so very right is that they have not succumbed to the temptation of embellishment. What people say is pretty much what they would be thinking, though keeping to themselves for the most part. Mark’s assistant (Tina Fey, chipper and vicious) tells him that she is more qualified than he is for his job and that every moment she‘s worked for him has been awful. A server greets Anna by asking if she would call him if he gave her his number and her replying that she wouldn’t because she is out of his league. It is to Garner’s credit that while the remarks are personal, insulting Mark’s potential genetic contributions (thick waistline, snub nose), they never quite seem mean-spirited, just the truth. Rob Lowe, on the other hand, as Mark’s arch-rival, makes it seem as mean-spirited as his character means them to be.
As for Gervais, he once again that he is the perfect, if most unlikely, of romantic heroes as well as a comic genius. The spark that lights up his face when he realizes that the world is his oyster spreads to a wicked little smile that carefully falls just short of a smirk. Instead, the little guy getting his own in a world that dismisses him becomes a deeply satisfying experience. Later, when lying brings tears of anguish to his eyes, it’s equally affecting, with Gervais taking the risk of being vulnerable and making it pay off magnificently both for his character and for the story. He makes both more than a mere light diversion, turning THE INVENTION OF LYING into a sweet but unflinching view of what makes people tick and choosing to look for the silver lining, while never quite forgetting the thunder and lightning lurking in that dark cloud.