Ricky Gervais is a hilarious man. He’s a great comedian, and he’s funny, so it’s a huge let-down when a film he both wrote and directed, ‘The Invention of Lying,’ doesn’t live up to expectations. ‘The Invention of Lying’ has a great and interesting premise – a man who lives in a world where everyone tells the honest truth, and ends up inventing “lying.” The film portrays the antics Gervais’ character, Mark Bellison, encounters, as well as the issues that come along with the invention of lying.‘The Invention of Lying’ begins by showing us how miserable and crappy Mark’s life is. He can’t afford his rent, he has an awful love-life, and is getting fired soon. When Mark gets fired, his landlord evicts him and asks for $800 in rent money that Mark doesn’t have – he only has $300. When Mark goes to the bank, the clerk tells him that their system’s currently down due to unknown reasons. When the system suddenly comes back on, Mark spontaneously requests an $800 deposit. The clerk finds it odd that Mark’s account only contains $300 yet he requested an $800 deposit, and since they live in a world where everyone tells the truth, she figures it’s due to a system error and gives Mark his $800. Mark just invented “lying.”

What I’ve just explained takes place within the first 30 minutes of the film. These first 30 minutes were boring and barely funny. Having characters that only tell the truth is an interesting idea, but it gets old right from the start. These honest characters are meant to be funny, but they’re usually not. Having characters with completely honest characteristics calls for one-sided personalities, which in turn makes them barely interesting and boring. The exception to this is Jennifer Gardner, whom portrays Anna, Mark’s love-interest.

Jennifer Gardner is sweet and innocent in the film, and just brightens the film with her sunny personality. Her character, Anna, knows she’s out of Mark’s league. Anna can sometimes seem superficial, but it’s only because she speaks her mind and the truth, which is what everyone else does. However, she slowly becomes close to Mark.

What Mark first does with his newfound ability to lie is get a lot of money and buy a mansion. The interesting thing about this film is that it doesn’t make Mark a bad person. He could’ve used his abilities for worse things, like for sex and manipulating people – he doesn’t really do that. Instead, Mark uses his lie to make other peoples’ lives better. He saves a guy from committing suicide (Jonah Hill), improves a homeless man’s life, and gave hope and happiness to many elderly people, including his dying mother.

‘The Invention of Lying’ started off badly, but it improved as it went on. The big conflict of the film arises when Mark lies to his dying mother that there’s an afterlife and that it’s special and amazing. Word of this special afterlife spreads fast, and eventually everyone has heard about Mark’s story. When pressed for information, Mark eventually invents a religion, one that speaks of a man in the sky that controls everything on Earth. The funniest part of the film comes with the creation of this belief, or religion. However, the film quickly downgrades into a predictable love story in its third act.

Ricky Gervais’ ‘The Invention of Lying’ had potential, but it didn’t quite work. The film had few laughs, but most are in the middle. The conclusion to the film never really concludes anything except for Mark’s love-life. A film such as this is disappointing when it has really funny people in it. The same thing happened with ‘Date Night‘, and even though ‘Date Night’ was good, it could’ve been so much better with star comedians such as Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

Two out of four Kents.

PS: The film has a lot of familiar faces in cameo or small roles: Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Edward Norton, and Jason Bateman. This was one of the good things about ‘The Invention of Lying.’