It’s profoundly smug because it mocks Judaeo – Christianity while so proud of itself for its cleverness that it fails to see the cheapness and lack of sophistication of its attacks. It’s intellectually dishonest because, like all beauty and the beast stories, it operates on the underlying assumption that it is for the beautiful to judge beastliness.
In the film, Rick Gervais plays a man living in a world in which no one has ever lied. There is no fiction; there is no acting; there is only objective truth. Of course, a world without imagination is a world in which no one could imagine new inventions or scientific theories, but that’s not important right now. The fun part, or at least the part which the film thinks is most fun, is that it’s a world without religion. Because, after all, religions are tissues of lies.
But Gervais invents the lie. He lies to ease the passing of his beloved mother, and people overhear. Those people tell other people and, before you know it, Gervais has written down the ten principles of religion and taped them to the backs of a couple of pizza boxes in a heavy handed mockery of the Ten Commandments. One lie leads to another and to another, and soon the image of Gervais with the Pizza Boxes has transformed into something like a crucifix. Gervais himself is made up to look like Jesus. And we in the audience are expected to laugh at the yahoos simple enough to believe in an invisible man in the sky.
Gervais also lies to attract Jennifer Garner, a woman whom I’m told is beautiful (but I just don’t see it). She’s meant to grow and mature and see that real beauty, real desirability, lies within. But she has no inner beauty. In fact, she has no redeeming qualities of which the movie makes us aware, leading us to believe that Gervais himself sees only the beauty without. This, of course, is the Beauty and the Beast conundrum. Beauty is supposed to see past the beast and perceive the lovely soul within. But the beast sees only the beauty, which puts him in the position of demanding that which he is unwilling to give: loyalty to the soul and not the appearance.
THE INVENTION OF LYING isn’t funny, it isn’t romantic, it isn’t good. In fact, it’s the worst movie I’ve seen since TIMELINE. Pass this one by.
2 comments:
In your opinion, it is the worst movie. In my opinion, it was a movie I enjoyed watching. Whoever, just watch the movie and judge for yourself.
I enjoyed this movie too. This reviewer was looking a little too deep, imo. Gervais is always irreverent & your takeaway may be exactly what he intended: Religion is claptrap, people are shallow & self-absorbed, and humor is necessary.
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