“The Invention of Lying” tells it straight

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:05:00 +0000

Ricky Gervais isn't leading-man material, and he knows it. In "The Invention of Lying," which he co-wrote and co-directed (with Matthew Robinson), he plays Mark Bellison, a polite, pudgy, low-level screenwriter who lives in an alternate world that, he explains, "has never evolved the ability to tell a lie." That means when Mark shows up for a first date with a woman whom he's long had a crush on, Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner), she gives him the once-over at the door and doesn't bother to hide her disappointment. They exchange some chit-chat in which she pointedly avoids being evasive, and when it's time for the two of them to head out, she announces brightly, "I don't find you attractive. Shall we?"

In "The Invention of Lying," people say the harshest, or just the most direct, things in the politest way possible. When Mark and Anna arrive at the modest restaurant he's chosen, she holds up the menu and mutters, as if her date were unable to hear, "Plastic." The waiter who comes to their table (played by the fine comic actor Martin Starr) greets them with the words "I'm embarrassed I still work here," uttered in the same mechanically cheerful voice he might use to say, "Hi, I'm Jared, and I'll be your server this evening." This is the world Mark is used to, and so while we see his spirit crumple a bit every time Anna reaffirms her lack of interest in him, Mark has no compunction about describing himself as a "loser." He accepts his lowly place in society's food chain.

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“The Invention of Lying” tells it straight