The Invention Of Lying is single-concept comedy, played out
to ridiculous and often entertaining levels, but ultimately comes off a little
flat as if from a script-reading rather than actual performances. That concept, that an alternate Earth
(assumption here – the metaphysics of this closely-resembling Earth are never
explained) is inhabited by humans who have never learned to lie. Ricky Gervais plays a man who one day in a pressure
situation tells the world’s first lie.
And the more he lies, the more he benefits from it because regular
people perceive everything that comes out of their mouths is the truth.
If Ricky says his friend isn’t driving drunk, even though
the police officer just administered a drunk driving test, then the driving
test must be broken. If Ricky says his
bank account has an extra few hundred bucks instead of being depleted, then the
computer must be broken. This is a fine
point, but this movie isn’t so much the invention of lying but the invention of
being incorrect, because every normal (foil) person believes everything that
anyone says. Because it is spoken, it is
so. I speak, therefore what I say is a
fact. (There is apparently no word for ‘truth’
just as there is no word for ‘lie’.)
We could examine whether this is also more a fact versus
opinion exercise, or a mixture of all of these to suit the picture, but about
halfway through the film we get to the whole point of the enterprise – using the
invention of lying to invent religion.
Because in a world without lying, there *is* no religion. That is, until Ricky makes up a story of a
paradise beyond death to assuage his mother on her deathbed. The attendant overhear his merciful story and
assume he knows all about this afterlife.
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