The Invention of Lying
| The Invention of Lying | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by |
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| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Narrated by | Ricky Gervais |
| Cinematography | Tim Surhstedt |
| Edited by | Chris Gill |
| Music by | Tim Atack |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates | September 14, 2009 (TIFF) October 2, 2009 |
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Country | Template:Film US |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $32,054,454[2] |
The Invention of Lying is a 2009 romantic comedy film that is written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson. This film is the directorial debut of Gervais. The film stars Ricky Gervais as the first human with the ability to lie. It also stars Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., and Rob Lowe.
Plot
The film features a high concept narrative set in an alternate reality in which there is no such thing as lying and everything said is the absolute truth. In this world people make blunt, often cruel statements, including those that people would normally keep to themselves. There is a lack of religious belief, and the absence of fiction results in a movie industry limited to lecture-style historical readings, and advertisements as bluntly truthful as the people are.
Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is an unsuccessful lecture-film writer who is assigned to write about the 13th century, a "very boring" era. One night he goes out on a date with the beautiful, charming and wealthy Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). She tells Mark she is not attracted to him, due to his looks and unsuccessful financial situation, but is going out with him to satisfy her extremely prejudicial mother and as a favour to Mark's friend Greg Kleinschmidt (Louis C.K.).
The next day Mark is fired from his job due to lack of interest in his films, and his landlord evicts him for not paying his rent. Depressed, he goes to the bank to close his account. The teller informs him that the computers are down, and asks him how much money he has in his account. Mark has an epiphany and tells the world's first lie, that he has $800 in his account. The computer comes back online and shows his balance is $300 but the teller gives him the full $800 anyway, assuming that the computer made a mistake.
Mark then lies in a variety of other circumstances, including telling an attractive woman that the world will end unless they have sex, preventing a police officer (Edward Norton in a cameo) from arresting his friend Greg for DUI, getting money from a casino, and stopping his neighbour Frank Fawcett (Jonah Hill) from committing suicide. He then writes a screenplay about the world being invaded by aliens in the 14th century and that the memories of all humans were erased. He becomes wealthy from the success of the film which he named "The Black Plague."
Mark convinces Anna to go out with him again hoping she will see past his looks and weight now that he is financially secure. On their date Anna congratulates Mark for his success and admits that he would be a good husband and father. She is still not attracted to him because if they ever have children Mark would contribute half of the heredity to their children, making them "fat kids with snub noses" and Anna does not want that. Mark then gets a call that his mother had a heart attack and rushes to the hospital. There, the doctor tells him that his mother is going to die. She is terrified of death, believing that death will bring an eternity of nothingness. Mark, through tears, tells her that death instead brings a joyful afterlife, introducing the concept of a Heaven to her, and she dies happy while the doctors and nurses appear awed by what he says.
Mark soon receives worldwide attention for his supposed new information about death. Under pressure from Anna, he tells them, through "ten rules", he talks to a "Man In The Sky" who controls everything and promises great rewards in the good place after you die so long as you do no more than three "bad things." Some time later Anna and Mark are hanging out together in a park and Anna asks him if they marry would being rich and famous make their children not fat with snub noses. Mark wants to lie but doesn't because of his feelings for Anna.
Meanwhile Mark's rival Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) pursues Anna romantically, motivated by spite because of Mark's success. However Brad's blunt, rude manner makes Anna uncomfortable though she continues dating him; they become engaged. Anna invites Mark to the wedding. Mark tries to convince her to not marry Brad but fails. Anna goes to the park she first went to with Mark and sees a slightly overweight child with an ice cream when some thinner boys come and mush his ice cream into his shirt. She yells at them and then they run away. She runs up to the boy and wipes away his tears while asking his name. He replies 'Short Fat Brian' to which she tells him: 'you are so much more than just that.'
Before the wedding Mark's friend Greg shows up and tells him that he didn't lose her yet and Mark reluctantly attends Anna and Brad's wedding. There, he objects to the marriage, but the officiant informs him that only the Man in the Sky can stop the wedding. Brad and Anna both ask Mark to ask the Man in the Sky what Anna should do but Mark refuses to say anything and leaves, wanting Anna to choose for herself. Anna walks out and Mark confesses his ability to lie and that the Man In The Sky he told everyone about was made up. Anna struggles to comprehend the concept and asks why he didn't lie to convince her to marry him; Mark states that it "wouldn't count." Anna confesses that she loves him.
Some time later, the now-pregnant Anna and Mark are shown married with a son, who has inherited his father's ability to lie.
Cast
- Ricky Gervais as Mark Bellison
- Jennifer Garner as Anna McDoogles
- Rob Lowe as Brad Kessler
- Louis C.K. as Greg Kleinschmidt
- Jonah Hill as Frank Fawcett
- Christopher Guest as Nathan Goldfrappe
- Tina Fey as Shelley Bailey
- Donna Sorbello Anna's mother
- Roz Ryan as Nurse Barbara
- Jeffrey Tambor as Anthony James
- Jimmi Simpson as Bob Scott
- Fionnula Flanagan as Martha Bellison
- Shaun Williamson as Richard Bellison
- Bobby Moynihan as Bellison's Assistant
- Martin Starr as Waiter
- Conner Rayburn as Son
- Donald Foley as Yelling Man
- John Hodgman as Wedding Overseer
- Nate Corddry as News Reporter
- Stephanie March as Blonde Woman on the Street
- Jason Bateman as Doctor (cameo)
- Stephen Merchant as Man at the Door (cameo)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jim The Bartender (cameo)
- Edward Norton as Traffic Cop (cameo)
- Michael Caine as Theatre Audience Member (cameo)
Production
The film was originally being produced under the title This Side of the Truth.[3]
The film was financed by Media Rights Capital and Radar Pictures and filmed primarily in Lowell, Massachusetts; location shoots also took place in Quincy, Andover, North Andover, Sudbury, Tewksbury and Boston, Massachusetts and Haverhill, Massachusetts.[citation needed] Principal photography was completed in June 2008.[citation needed]
Release
Warner Bros. owns the rights for the film's North American distribution, while Universal Pictures owns the rights to release the film outside of North America. The film was released in North America on October 2, 2009. Its world premiere occurred two weeks earlier at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2009.
The DVD and Blu-ray were released on January 19, 2010.[4] Gervais briefly promoted the DVD during his hosting duty at the 2010 Golden Globe Awards in a joking manner. He later reported on his blog the day after the Globes that the DVD sold 70,000 copies in a couple of hours.[citation needed]
Reception
Reviews
The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 57% of 163 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.8 out of 10.[5] Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programmes, the film holds an overall approval rating of 50%, based on a sample of 30 reviews.[6] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 58 based on 31 reviews, suggesting "mixed or average reviews".[7]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film the three and a half stars out of four saying "in its amiable, quiet, PG-13 way, [it] is a remarkably radical comedy"[8] while Empire gave the film one star out of five saying the "ramshackle plot detours into a hideously ill-conceived religious satire".[citation needed] Xan Brooks of The Guardian was more favourable, giving the film four out of five stars, although he was critical of some aspects: "It is slick and it is funny. But it is also too obviously schematic, while that romantic subplot can feel awfully synthetic at times."[9] Manohla Dargis of the The New York Times called it a "mostly funny if melancholic defense of deceit" that "looks so shoddy that you yearn for the camerawork, lighting and polish of his shows, like the original The Office, because, really, these days TV rarely looks this bad." In some scenes, Dargis says "lying becomes a means to transcendence, an escape from the quotidian, from our oppressive literal-mindedness, from our brute selves. For the most part, though, Mr. Gervais prefers to shock us with our own brutality...[with] unvarnished truths [that] begin to feel heavy, cruel."[10]
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rated The Invention of Lying as "O - morally offensive" characterizing it as venomous and pervasively blasphemous, and saying it "launches an all-out, sneering assault on the foundations of religious faith such as has seldom if ever been seen in a mainstream film, despicably belittling core Judeo-Christian beliefs and mocking both the person and the teaching of Jesus Christ."[11]
Box office
The film opened at #5 with $7,027,472 behind Zombieland, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in its third weekend, the Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3-D double feature, and Surrogates in its second weekend.[12] The film has come to gross $18,451,251 in the United States, and $13,461,542 internationally, with a worldwide gross of $31,912,793.[2][13]
References
- ^ "The Invention of Lying: Ricky Gervais". ComingSoon.net. 2009-08-24.
- ^ a b "Movie The Invention of Lying - Box Office Data". The-Numbers. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
- ^ Gervais, Ricky (2009-03). "Week sixty-three — April 2009". Ricky Gervais... Obviously. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "The Art of Lying". IGN Entertainment. IGN Movies. 2009-12-03. Retrieved 2009-12-26.
- ^ "The Invention of Lying". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
- ^ "The Invention of Lying Reviews: Top Critics". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
- ^ "The Invention of Lying (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Invention of Lying". www.robertebert.com. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
- ^ Invention of Lying review from The Guardian
- ^ Manohla Dargis (October 2, 2009). "A World Where Truth Turns Out Not to Be Beauty". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-05-10.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ The Invention of Lying review from United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
- ^ Internet Movie Database US film charts 2nd October
- ^ The Invention of Lying from Box Office Mojo
