Gervais’ ‘Lying’ sputters after starting strong

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Ricky Gervais may be best known for his British situation comedies “The Office” and “Extras,” but his background in sketch comedy surfaces in “The Invention of Lying.”

The movie, which Gervais co-wrote and co-directed with Matthew Robinson, is essentially a comic sketch about the only man on earth who can tell a lie. Like many movies that try to stretch a sketch idea to 90 minutes or more, “Lying” starts to sputter early on.

We are most familiar with movies (usually terrible) based on “Saturday Night Live” sketches, but those feature characters who became popular on the show, Jake and Elwood, Wayne and Garth, the Coneheads, etc. “Lying” is closer to British sketch comedy, where concept, not character, is king.

“Lying” is Monty Python crossed with “The Twilight Zone” (Gervais got the idea after watching a “Twilight Zone” marathon). It takes place in a world just like ours except that in the history of mankind, no one has told a lie. Honesty is hardwired into people’s brains. The idea of telling an untruth is so inconceivable no words exist for it. “Falsehood” is not in the dictionary. Neither is “fiction.”

If this sounds like a better world, it isn’t. People have no filter. They say whatever “truth” pops into their heads, even cruel comments. Gervais’ character, dumpy and unsuccessful Mark Bellison, cannot walk five steps without someone telling him he is dumpy and unsuccessful.

Shortly into the story, Mark has lost his job and faces eviction. When he goes to the bank to close his account, a new pathway forms in his brain and Mark asks for $800 – the amount he needs to pay his rent – when he has only $300. Having no reason to doubt Mark, the teller hands him $800, and Mark walks into a bold new chapter in human history.

Up until this point, the movie supplies amusing ideas about a world that tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A nursing home is named A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People. The spokesman in a soft drink commercial says, “I know it’s just colored sugar water, but I’m asking you to not stop buying Coke.”

Mark’s former job was screenwriter at a movie studio whose blockbusters are films of lecturers reading history texts. Mark was unfortunate enough to be assigned the 14th century, which limited him to writing about the bubonic plague – the ultimate in box office poison.

Using his revolutionary ability to dissemble, Mark becomes rich by telling banks and casinos they owe him money. He invents science fiction and gets his old job back by submitting a script that details the heretofore-unknown Martian invasion of Europe in 1301.

Mark is not without ethics, though. He won’t lie to take emotional advantage of a person, not even to bed lovely Anna (Jennifer Garner, too broadly comic), whom he has adored for years. Anna likes Mark as a friend, but is superficially attracted to his handsome workplace rival, played by the ace of smugness, Rob Lowe.

“Lying” vaguely sets up the notion that beautiful people like Anna are the beneficiaries of total honesty. Wealth and executive positions usually follow their good looks, so attractive people endeavor to mate with each other for genetic purity. It’s like “Gattaca” minus all the cars with green headlights.

For a while “Lying” veers between workplace comedy and eugenics-tinged romantic comedy, but the ideas run out of steam quickly. Then Gervais and Robinson make a severe course correction. On her deathbed, Mark’s mother (Fionnula Flanagan) is terrified of eternal nothingness. On the spot Mark tells her that you go to a wonderful place after you die, a place where departed family and friends wait for you, a place filled with love and mansions for all.
Mark has invented religion. Because the hospital staff overheard his story, he is now the messiah.

A hilarious scene follows where Mark relays the 10 rules given to him by “The Man in the Sky,” but trying to squeeze 4,000 years of Judeo-Christian teaching into a single afternoon can be a tricky thing. The masses press him to clarify the distinctions between mortal and venial sin and ask why The Man in the Sky allows natural disasters and cancer. Mark’s hasty answers make the whole thing more confusing.

The film’s affirmation of atheism likely will spark controversy, but Gervais and Robinson don’t have the nerve to make “Lying” a full-on religious satire. The messiah plot thread gets tossed into the rotation with the workplace thread and the “Gattaca” thread.

None of these ideas is strong enough to define the story, so “Lying” flounders. Many jokes work, but not in concert. While Gervais was watching that “Twilight Zone” marathon, he should have paid more attention to the fact that the episodes are only half an hour long.

2-1/2 stars
Rated: PG-13 for language, including some sexual material and a drug reference
Running time:  1 hour, 50 minutes
Written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson
Starring Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Fionnula Flanagan