thoughts on The Invention of Lying

Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) explains to us in voiceover that in the world he lives in, no one is capable of lying.  Not only is everyone honest all the time, this also means that fiction doesn't exist, and advertisements are just straight-up descriptions of products.  Mark is fired from his job as a screenwriter (which in this world simply consists of choosing historical events and writing factual descriptions for someone to read out loud for the camera) and is about to be evicted; rent is $800, and he only has $300.  While standing in line at the bank to withdraw that last $300, however, something occurs to him: he could just TELL the teller that he has $800 in his account, she would believe him, and his problems would be solved.  He does so successfully, and he realizes that he could lie about other things, too (though they don't have a word for "lie" in their world).  At first, he uses this new power to get more money, but eventually, he uses it to comfort his mother, who is scared of dying.  Basically, he invents Heaven.  The doctors and nurses at her nursing home overhear him, and all of a sudden there are hundreds of people swarming around his apartment wanting to know more.

Though this movie had its funny and even touching moments, something didn't quite sit right with me about it.  After sleeping on it, I decided that it is this: the movie is about one thing before Mark develops the ability to lie, and another thing after.  Before he develops this ability, the movie is about what happens when people feel the need to state every thought that comes into their head.  After he develops the ability to lie, the movie is about what happens when people believe everything they're told.  There are actually problematic aspects with both scenarios.

The first part of the movie depicts a world in which people have no inner monologue.  This means that a date (Anna McDoogles, played by Jennifer Garner) tells Mark upon greeting him at the door that she is disappointed that he is early because she's not ready yet, and also she was just in the middle of masturbating.  Mark's secretary Shelley (Tina Fey) tells him that he is almost definitely getting fired that day, so she hasn't been bothering to take his phone messages, and also she plans to spend her work day looking for new jobs on Craigslist.  The receptionist at Mark's mother's nursing home (Dreama Walker) greets him by telling him that he should probably say his last goodbyes that day, because his mom (Fionnula Flanagan) is at the top of the nursing home employees' "death poll."  This is all sometimes funny, but mostly mean, unnecessary, and has little to do with the fact that these people can't lie.  Mark's secretary is just generally unpleasant and bad at her job. And while I can see where, in this universe, a nursing home employee couldn't tell Mark that his mother was going to be fine or pretend to care about her if she didn't, she has to understand most people would be upset about their own mother's death, right?  Is it not possible to express some concern or empathy about that without lying?  Not in this world, apparently, because when Mark's neighbor Frank (Jonah Hill) tells Mark that he plans to commit suicide, Mark just kind of accepts it and goes on about his day.  Again, I can see why he couldn't tell Frank that things are going to get better when he has no way of knowing that, but I don't see why he can't ask questions or offer help.

After Mark develops the ability to lie, we are confronted with the knowledge that the people in his life will believe literally anything he tells them, even if it contradicts what they absolutely know to be true.  The thing that bothered me here is this: in real life, even when people are doing their best to be honest, they sometimes misremember things.  They sometimes have a different impression of what happened at a given time than someone else did.  They sometimes are just plain wrong about something they thought was true.  This doesn't seem to happen here.  People seem to take everything at complete face value, which actually goes a long way in explaining why Anna stays so shallow for so long.  Though she admits that she likes Mark a lot and that he makes her really happy, she keeps telling him that a romantic relationship isn't possible because she doesn't want chubby snub-nosed children.  The impression we get (and that we actually see in a scene where a chubby kid is picked on) is that such children would be treated especially harshly in a world where no one lies.  However, when Mark tells Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe), the man that Anna very nearly marries instead of him, that even if Brad's kids are better-looking, that doesn't mean that they'll be better people than Mark's would be, my reaction is...duh?  How do these people not already know this?  Do they so internalize what everyone says about them that they can't imagine themselves as anything else?  The answer is clearly yes, but...I just didn't totally buy it, and it, again, didn't seem to have all that much to do with people's inability to lie.

There were aspects/moments that were funny here, and Ricky Gervais is very likable as Mark.  However, a lot of it just made me furrow my brow and go "Hmm..."