Ricky Gervais is one of my favourite comedy actors. His films are very funny and 'The Invention Of Lying' is no exception. Here he dons the director's cap as well. Here we have a pg-13 romantic comedy that is actually very funny, unlike others of its genre. It stars Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton and plenty of others.
Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is a loser about to lose his job as a screenwriter at a very successful production company, Lecture Films. He also has a lifelong crush over the perfect girl, beautiful Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner), but she doesn't want a fat, snub-nosed loser as her husband. That would ruin her chances to have perfect genetically beautiful, pretty babies. The setting for the story is somewhat odd. Nobody can actually lie about anything, they don't even know about the word as its not invented yet. Mark is about to get thrown out of his apartment for his inability to pay the rent. So, he goes to the bank to withdraw all his cash. But, there's a technical glitch in the computers and they ask the amount he has to withdraw from his account. He asks for 800$ instead of 300$ and the systems are back on. But, the lady says there must be a mistake as the system shows 300$ and she gives him 800$ thinking the system is corrupt..! Here inadvertently, Mark invents the art of lying. He is the first person ever to lie and its as easy as drinking water to him and everybody believes whatever he says. Using his new found power, he sways his old company and becomes rich and famous. Will he get the perfect girl and will he really be happy?
This is a romantic comedy, so the ending is pretty much guaranteed to go in one direction. How the director takes us through this journey is the key point in every film of this genre. Many are plain bad or very stupid. But, this film has a lot of hilarious moments (not the slapstick comedy), sprinkled with deep emotional drama. I felt sad when Mark's mother dies and also when Anna is getting ready to marry Brad who is a perfect genetic match to her. But, Brad is the guy who always hates losers and he is pretty much a bully and Mark tries to make Anna understand this, but she goes ahead to marry him anyway. Jennifer Garner's portrayal of Anna is spot on. At first, she is very short- sighted when it comes to judging people and after her friendship with Mark all that changes and she has a whole new perspective. Ricky Gervais's portrayal of Mark as a sweet, smart and kind-hearted man who will always love Anna no matter how old she becomes is very well done.The whole town full of virgins (i.e no liars) concept is awesome. The film gets a few points for the concept itself.
The performances by Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Jason Bateman and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the cameos are very good. Edward Norton is barely recognizable as the cop and is downright hilarious. Look out for the DVD extras and you'll be wondering why they didn't put it into the film. The evolution part was good. This is a very good movie and I can't recommend this enough. Please try and see this and you'll not be disappointed. This is a little gem of a movie.
8/10
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