The Invention of Lying has a first half that works fantastically. It's a premise with a touch of the Twilight Zone, only filtered through a comedian like Ricky Gervais. It's about how the whole world cannot tell a lie since they don't know anything else aside from the truth. This means people just say exactly what they mean to say or what they think of someone else or off the top of their head at a moment's notice, and it basically makes everybody's sense of perception based on what's on the surface without looking at any deeper truth (i.e. Gervais' character is a 'chubby guy with a snub nose' for his date, Jennifer Garner). But one day Gervais is at the bank and about to take out money and literally a flash of lightning comes to him and he comes up with the first lie ever. From there on in he uses this to his advantage, spinning a crazy story to get his job back at the screen writing office (where he writes scripts on history that are read boringly by a person sitting in a chair facing the audience), to get another date with Garner's character, and even help out a few folks.
The spin happens when he comes up with a lie to his mother when she's on her deathbed - he basically comes up with the concept of the afterlife just to ease her fear of entering an eternity of nothingness. But word spreads about this place "where you meet your friends and live in a mansion", and he's suddenly a voice to (as George Carlin would've once said), "the Man Who Lives in the Clouds" for all the world. It's a very funny concept that is executed to some very funny scenes, some even brilliant. Gervais makes for a likable lead character (a shame he's only started starring in his own movies), and the actors he surrounds himself with are all very good - sometimes with some surprise walk-ons such as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Edward Norton (the latter is kind of an in-joke lie unto itself). And for at least the first half it's simply a fantastic script that hits right note after right note.
So why not a total success? Frankly, despite the intelligence in the material throughout, and the competent (if not imaginative) direction, the love story that develops isn't believable. Even as Garner's character works within her parameters, it does not make sense after a while why Gervais' Mark would still be going after her. To be fair, it does provide for an amusing sight gag later in the film as he starts to look like Moses (hence the Ten Commandments on the back of pizza boxes), but it just comes off too conventionally compared to the more subversive ideas in the material. To put it another way, it's nowhere near a hit-out-of-the-park story of subversion, but rather a mind, light-hearted romp through the human condition, if that makes sense. It's about what happens when only one person can tell between what is and what isn't, and all of its laughs and sharp points can't make up for its dull (and annoying) third act.
The spin happens when he comes up with a lie to his mother when she's on her deathbed - he basically comes up with the concept of the afterlife just to ease her fear of entering an eternity of nothingness. But word spreads about this place "where you meet your friends and live in a mansion", and he's suddenly a voice to (as George Carlin would've once said), "the Man Who Lives in the Clouds" for all the world. It's a very funny concept that is executed to some very funny scenes, some even brilliant. Gervais makes for a likable lead character (a shame he's only started starring in his own movies), and the actors he surrounds himself with are all very good - sometimes with some surprise walk-ons such as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Edward Norton (the latter is kind of an in-joke lie unto itself). And for at least the first half it's simply a fantastic script that hits right note after right note.
So why not a total success? Frankly, despite the intelligence in the material throughout, and the competent (if not imaginative) direction, the love story that develops isn't believable. Even as Garner's character works within her parameters, it does not make sense after a while why Gervais' Mark would still be going after her. To be fair, it does provide for an amusing sight gag later in the film as he starts to look like Moses (hence the Ten Commandments on the back of pizza boxes), but it just comes off too conventionally compared to the more subversive ideas in the material. To put it another way, it's nowhere near a hit-out-of-the-park story of subversion, but rather a mind, light-hearted romp through the human condition, if that makes sense. It's about what happens when only one person can tell between what is and what isn't, and all of its laughs and sharp points can't make up for its dull (and annoying) third act.