The Invention of Lying - Review
Mr Birch loves this film, it’s the greatest film ever made. Sorry, that was a lie…
So the premise for The Invention of Lying is an interesting one. Ricky Gervais (playing well Ricky Gervais) lives in a world where everyone cannot lie. No white lies, no big lies, nothing. So in this world Ricky (his character has a name but he’s so paper thing we’ll just call him Ricky), is a chubby little loser who everyone hates and after a series of disastrous situations (one with Jennifer Garner) he’s looking at losing his job and his house. Suddenly he discovers that he can lie and uses this new found power to get extra money for rent, persuade a woman to sleep with him and to get his friend out of a drink driving arrest (with a bizarre cameo from Edward Norton.
Unfortunately this all happens about 30 minutes into the frankly over long 1 hour and 40 minutes of the film’s running time and the idea rapidly loses steam. At this point Ricky finds himself accidently creating religion to comfort a dying relative (in a cringingly bad scene) and soon he’s seen as God’s spokesman. Then as quickly as this is introduced, mainly I think for a rather obvious Jesus gag, he drop this and spends the last 30 minutes of the film trying to win the heart of Jennifer Garner.
The film is a mess. Ricky Gervais wrote, co-directed and stars and I think he has stretched himself for this. His acting is not up to the same standards and the script does not seem to shine with his previous levels of witty observation and embarrassment fuelled comedy situations. As a leading man he is simply out of his depth and having the only British accent amongst a cast of American makes this fact stand out even more. I think this may have been better if he’d spent some time polishing the script and handing the reins to some else to direct. I get the impression that ego may have prevented him from not being the man up there on screen.
A really good idea and could have been a good film if it had been developed a bit more. A classic example of a story that needed a few more re-writes. Avoid.
Was it worth the admission price? No. A great concept but let down by a poor script and Ricky Gervais’ acting.
Would you recommend it your friends? Again, it’s a no. Even die-hard Ricky Gervais fans will struggle.
So back to “The Office” for Ricky then? Yes, stick with what you know and stop trying to bag the babe; it just looks a bit desperate...