The Invention of Lying

Plot synopsis:
The film is set in an alternative reality in which lying does not exist. As a consequence of this premise, religion does not exist.
Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is a screenwriter, in a film industry limited to historical readings because there is no fiction. One night he has a date with the beautiful and wealthy Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). She tells Mark she is not attracted to him, because of his looks and failing financial situation, but is going out with him as a favour to his best friend Greg Kleinschmidt (Louis C.K.).
The next day Mark is fired from his job because of the lack of interest in his films, and his landlord threatens to evict him for not paying his rent. Crestfallen, he goes to the bank to close his account. The teller informs him that the computers are down, and asks him how much money he has in his account. Mark has an epiphany that enables him to tell the world's first lie, to the effect that he has $800 — the amount he owed his landlord — in his account. He then lies in a variety of other circumstances, such as preventing a police officer (Edward Norton) from arresting Greg for drunk driving and stopping his depressive neighbour Frank Fawcett (Jonah Hill) from committing suicide. He realises that lying can be used for helping others rather than personal gain, and writes a screenplay about the world being invaded by aliens in the 14th century, in which it is claimed that everyone's memories were erased. He becomes wealthy from the film's success.
Mark convinces Anna to go out with him again; she congratulates Mark for his financial success and admits that he would be a good husband and father, but she is still not attracted to him. Mark then gets a call that his mother has had a heart attack and rushes to the hospital. There, the doctor (Jason Bateman) tells him that his mother is going to die. She is scared of death, believing that it will bring an eternity of nothingness. Mark, through tears, tells her that death instead brings a joyful afterlife, introducing the concept of a Heaven to her, and she dies happy.
Mark soon receives worldwide attention for his supposed new information about death. After encouragement from Anna, he tells the world, through "ten rules" (mirroring the Ten Commandments), that he talks to a "Man In The Sky" (God) who controls everything and promises great rewards in the good place after you die, as long as you do no more than three "bad things" (Sin). Some time later Anna and Mark are together in a park and Anna asks him, if they marry, would his now being rich and famous make their children more physically attractive. Mark wants to lie but does not because of his love for Anna, and says no.
Meanwhile, Mark's enemy Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) pursues Anna romantically, motivated by Mark's success. Though Brad's selfish, cruel manner makes Anna uncomfortable, she continues dating him and they become engaged. Before the wedding Greg appears and convinces Mark that he has not missed his chance with Anna. Mark reluctantly attends Anna and Brad's wedding, where he objects to the marriage, but the officiant informs him that only the Man in the Sky can stop the wedding. Brad and Anna both ask Mark to ask the Man in the Sky what Anna should do but Mark refuses to say anything and leaves, wanting Anna to choose for herself. Anna walks out and Mark confesses his ability to lie. Anna struggles to understand the concept and asks why he did not lie to convince her to marry him; Mark states that it "wouldn't count". Anna confesses that she loves him.
Some time later, Anna and Mark are shown happily married with a son, who appears by his actions to have inherited his father's ability to lie.

Tags: bleak, alternate reality, flashback, satire, philosophical, entertaining, storytelling

Review:
With no deviation.By the time Gervais comes across the knowledge that an alternate way of communication exists in "saying what wasn't" we embark on a tale of a man who essentially won the "lying Lottery".The humour is subtle, the contrast of religious themes are not so, and that may have been the weakest of elements in the film.
It then draws laughs by showing us how lying can turn the world upset down.A great comedy entertains and this one does that, but it also raises some highly provocative questions about religion and people's susceptibility to it.
To put icing on the cake, the movie has some startlingly beautiful scenes, for example, where the lead character soothes his mother over her coming death and the scene where Mark (Ricky Gervais) refuses to lie to Anna (Jennifer Garner).Gervais reminds one of Lou Costello with a sweetness and gentleness unique for a comedian unique for this age.
While this film's cheeky, pointed story is loaded with wit - including some side-splitting scenes (I cried with laughter watching Ricky Gervais' character face questions from a credulous crowd) - it has a real and rather serious plot.
In a world where people can only tell the truth, Ricky Gervais creates the lie.
In combination with lacklustre screenplay, I was left unimpressed with the utilisation of a potentially hilarious and fascinating concept.The Invention of Lying is a quiet, simple movie on the surface, but underneath lies a more complex, thought-provoking moral allegory, albeit one that fails to deliver anything truly remarkable.
But Gervais is now here to stand up for us, and just let us laugh."The Invention of Lying" is filled with one-liners, intelligent wit and the ultimate truth to our world.
Jennifer Garner at one point tells our hero, "I like the way you see the world." Well, so do I, Mr. Gervais, so do I..
To put it bluntly I think this movie was being far too kind compared to what would really happen if a world like this actually existed, but on top of that the actors in it played perfectly.
Again just his presence is funny from the moment he walks on screen and the voice (cause you won't instantly recognise him) gives him away.A scene with two Extras regulars is fun but feels out of place in the film, almost playing like an afterthought put in for faithful fans.Amongst the other leads Garner triumphs, giving it her all and Louis C.K. is very funny, but Jonah Hill is underused and never hits the high notes he achieved in Funny People, while Tina Fey doesn't bring it (and i so wanted her to) and Rob Lowe really fails in an update of his Wayne's World character.But ultimately this descends into sentiment and lacks resolve or real drama.
It often feels like a string of stand-up one-liners extended into plot devices (as there is no lying movies are a guy -nice touch cameo from Christopher Guest as one such - reading a book on camera) that work once but then are repeated over and over, beating the gag into submission.
Ideas like the use of lying to make people feel better are similarly used once to affecting and comedic effect but then overplayed.And before you know it you're bogged down in a film about perception of others and looking beyond the surface that could have been reached by any number of devices, making the lying thing irrelevant!Like Bruce Almighty the concept can only get the film so far before you notice you have almost no interest in the characters, there is no discernible plot and we're going to descend into sentimentality without passing through palpable drama or achieving any resolve.Disappointing is the only appropriate word..
For instance, when Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) picks up Anna (Jennifer Garner) for a first date, she promptly tells Mark that he's short, unattractive, and she's not looking forward to this date.This is a universe peopled with trusting citizens.
Yet one can ask themselves a simple question, why not just lie his way out of it, instead of digging deeper holes.Gervais is at the lead again, after his feel good comedy Ghost Town, which people decided to skip.
Really neat concept, the fact that nobody can tell a lie, and therefore many things like religion never happened as they live in a world of reason and fact.So I can see why an unreasoned faith follower can find that offensive, and rightfully so, I think that is the point of it, if we lived in a pure world of fact and reason then religion would not be able to exist in that world, nor ghosts, myth or legend.
But also, all religion serves a few basic purposes, it is social form of control with a system of rules, it gives meaning and context to life, it holds people in position to be content with being held down as this will mean rewards in a afterlife - so you can see in such a world, without lies, why religion isn't needed.The film also shows that most creativity doesn't exist in such a word, film being reduced to an academic monologue of an historic account, as to dress up actors and embellish a story, like Gladiator would be a complete lie, and Superman a bigger lie, but you don't hear film buffs or comic book fans saying it is anti-film, or anti-creative.But the fact is, why can't a film offend you, if they want to make a film to offend any sub-group then I think they have that right, you have that right and I have that right.
So surely reasoned people need a release and response to such depravity in a mordern informed world, and this film fills that hole just right.The good thing is that as we move forward in a technology society, and create more magic ourselves in a world underpinned by fact and reason, then the less of an impact religious plays, each decade sees less accounts of fictitious magic, I can't remember the last time a true religious miracle was taken serious by anyone - which is progress.Come on people, we are trying to evolve here, get with the programme, you are holding us back...
Here's a film that creatively comments on our era of fact-free news and opinions by inventing a time when there was only truth -- telling the tale as a comedic fantasy where, quite literally, no one could ever think of lying.
As an atheist, i strongly agree that the spirituality must have been started something as shown in this movie and all the other fools started following it as "Sheeps".Apart from the above i like it as a movie with lot of laughs, nice story telling, fantasies, etc.i gave it 8/10 but if you miss it, you will really miss it...Mark Bellison: I did a bad thing...
The story concerns an alternate universe,much like ours,except nobody is allowed to lie,so people basically go around in life telling the absolute truth (without a scant trace of tact, mouthing some pretty harsh stuff that anybody else would just ruminate in their minds).
The rest of the cast is rounded out with the likes of Jennifer Garner,as Anna McDoogles, Mark's (potential)love interest,Rob Lowe,as a truly obnoxious yuppie co worker,Brad Kessler,who doesn't seem to have a good word for Mark,British screen veteran, Fionnula Flannagan as Mark's mother,Martha,and keep your eyes open for a brief,but most welcome appearance by Tina Fey,as Shelley,among others.
However, the laughs never completely stop (although they do slow down a lot in the third act), and the first two acts are definitely funny enough to make up for this.I would recommend this movie to anyone who liked Liar Liar, Yes Man, or The Truman Show.
I have no religion by the way, if it is relevant.This film lacked just about everything!The plot was very weak.OK a world without lying and one man starts to lie and use it to his advantage.
He's a guy stuck in a world that tells the truth, and he's the only one who knows how to lie.Think about this people: you can picture SNL doing a sketch comedy on this.
Everything else is incredibly Cliché, drawn out, and not original.I found myself wanting to throw up because of the lack of story development past the novelty of the concept of one man lying and the rest of the world believing him.This would had been much better at perhaps 30 to 60 minutes long..
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).
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.
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).
I'm sure I'll get the DVD when it comes out, and I'll enjoy its many-layered story and sense of humor even more the next time I watch it, and even more the time after that.The most unfortunate thing about The Invention of Lying is that you just don't see many films like it in theaters these days.
Personally, I laughed once, and that was during a cameo from Steven Merchant and Barry from Eastenders that is so daft and incongruous that it just lightened the whole mood by stepping out of the plodding, self-important movie that had clumsily tried to incorporate it.Ricky Gervais has built a career out of self-mockery, but it's not fooling anyone when it's a sideways strategy to buy himself the right to schmaltzy, self-aggrandising plot lines where the world comes to recognise him for who he really is: of course he's a better, more rounded human being than everyone else – he's written everyone else to be a self-absorbed, shallow wage slave and then placed them in a world that automatically justifies him lazily keeping them that way.
The golden boy of comedy loses his shine with this debacle of a film, proving that he is indeed fallible.In a world where there is no such thing as lying, down on his luck writer Mark Bellison (Gervais) discovers that he possesses the ability to do so.
And his lies made people feeling like death was a good thing (getting mansion, wining stuff, etc.) The movie is not funny, it's not entertaining, it's barely charming and Ricky Gervais sucks.
After getting fired from his job Mark Bellison (Gervais) suddenly finds he can say something that isn't and uses his new power to move up in the world.I'm not going to lie to you, unless it's good for me.
When Mark is let go and needs money a notion comes to him right in the middle of his bank.The awkward zoom in to the centre of the brain is as obvious as day into night and now, the central character, the unlikely hero, the typical overweight guy with no prospects or looks can do something no one else has ever thought of before, he can lie.This idea is brilliant, there is no denying it.
This renders other characters in the film spectacularly unfunny in every sense of the word, with the exception of Jonah Hill, who gives a slightly above average performance.As a die hard Ricky Gervais fan it was at times quite difficult to watch.
Several reviews have pointed out the concept of this movie is fine but the execution could have been better and I agree.The basic premise of a world where no one tells a lie could lead to fascinating situations but the barrel is barely scratched here.
A project involving Ricky Gervais usually suggests a piece of work that has genuine quality, originality, class, and, perhaps above all, humour.Unfortunately, The Invention of Lying is lacking in all areas.As a Gervais fan, I've enjoyed all his previous works, with, naturally, The Office being the jewel in the crown, a show that practically redefined British (if not the worlds) comedy, and showed traces of genius that will assure it's legacy as one of the greatest ever.His follow up shows such as Extras was very well done, and provides ample laughs, and his first Hollywood lead, Ghost Town, which had a nice mixture of comedy and heart, although not a hit, I liked.Sadly, Gervais has fallen short of his best, and, in my opinion, has hit his first dud.The Invention of lying, whilst having a decent premise, and an impressive cast, ultimately fails to deliver on all counts.The script provides too few laughs and falls foul of too many clichés (especially the ending), and even the direction has come under criticism, which after seeing the film I can, to an extent, agree with.After seeing The Office this is exactly the kind of film you think would never have been associated with Gervais; a bland and entirely mediocre movie that offers no originality and subsequently no legacy.This movie will be lost among the sea of other average movies that get churned out year upon year, and given Gervais' back catalogue, represents a major disappoint..
I'm a huge Ricky Gervais fan, I loved The Office and thought Extras was just as brilliant, but this movie is pretty awful.
Gervais is ordinarily a funny, witty, intelligent guy but this is one lousy screenplay that borrows heavily from Groundhog Day and fails miserably.It's a world where no one can lie but that means for the first half of the movie everyone walks around saying exactly what they're thinking.
The Invention of Lying (PG-13, 1:39) — 5 — Other: Miscellaneous, 3rd string, original, OSIT romanticsRicky Gervais is the British comedian who originated the TV show "The Office", and he's supposed to be a really funny guy, so when you find out that he's producing, writing, directing, and starring in a movie, you figure he has complete creative control over it, so it's bound to be side-splittingly hilarious.
I went to movies with my friends after school, we first went to watch paranormal activity or 2012, but they both were on late, so we had to watch The invention of lying,I saw the ad of this and was quite interested.Story was quite unique, in a way, but kinda familiar too.About a guy who can lie, this movie was indeed humorous, my buddies and I laughed in a lot of scenes which were pretty much awkward moment for the characterI was kinda wondering "what if I could only lie" I mean there were some features which were truly clever and funny like when the main character asked that girl walking down the street to have sex or else the world is going to end.
Well, "Invention of Truth telling" may not be accurate enough title, more like, "Invention of Truth Recognition".Honestly, if you really do want to know what people are thinking and saying on daily basis, even though the words coming out of their mouths would be completely opposite, this is the world we would end up in.
The concept of a world in which no one was capable of lying was an interesting one (although I thought too much unsolicited information was being volunteered) and it was reasonably funny when Mark (Ricky Gervais) first stumbled upon the secret of lying, and could suddenly manipulate people into doing anything he wanted, because no one would have a clue that he wasn't telling them the truth.
Continuing his hilarious streak, Ricky Gervais directs and stars in "The Invention of Lying", about a world in which people speak only the truth until his character figures out how to lie.
The characters were well written and in a sense very fitting for the script.If you want to watch a movie that will make you feel good, laugh and make you think about things you normally wouldn't 'The invention of lying' is definitely something for you!.
Gervais is not unlike his Mark character in this film...he writes a truly piece of garbage movie and yet people still go see it/rent it.
I had really big expectations and hopes for this movie and assumed it would be one of the best comedies of the year because I am a huge Ricky Gervais fan and loved everything he had done up to that point when I saw it (Office, Extras, his twitter) but ended up being very disappointed.
Ultimately it is fairly light-weight which may be disappointing to some but it is still a high-level comedy that delivers laughs on all of its promises.Ricky Gervais is, of course, made for this role so its easy to fall right in sync with him and discover how to lie for the first time.I have found that the best viewing of this movie is to go in with as little knowledge as to what its about and let it surprise you, so stop reading these reviews and go watch "The Invention of Lying" right now..