The Invention of Lying [2009]
Starring: Ricky Gervais [Mark Bellison], Jennifer Garner [Anna McDoogles], and a bunch of cameos.
Mini-cap: set in a modern era, Ricky ‘invents’ lying in a world where people tell only the truth.
Rating: 3.5 lies out of 5 – and that’s no lie.
Spoilers: Yes.
The movie
First of all, I have to say that the premises of this movie is quite clever. The adage “The truth hurts” is more true – and awkward – than ever. I often find myself wishing people would just tell the truth, but I have never thought about what the world would actually be like. Now I know (sort of… well, not really).
As for the acting and cinematography, there’s nothing to shout about. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by Gervais’ crying scene. He has finally broken out of the “jerk-ish” characters he seems to always play, and I felt genuinely sympathetic towards his character. Other than that, this is just another “feel-good” movie with a predictable romance-comedy ending. It is the philosophical underpinnings that made me give it a 3.5 (3 for the underlying theme(s), and 0.5 for everything else).
The Analysis
After Bellison ‘invents’ lying, you often find yourself wondering what’s a lie, and what isn’t. Before ‘inventing the lie’, Bellison runs into Frank [Jonah Hill], a suicidal coworker. Frank tells Bellison about his suicidal attempts, to which Bellison responds rather indifferently. On Bellison’s next encounter with Frank, they go through a similar conversation, but his response is different. He now tells Frank he shouldn’t commit suicide, and even after initially refusing an offer to hang out with Frank, he agrees.
So what was the truth in that case, or was it all a lie? If so, does that mean Bellison wanted Frank to kill himself, and didn’t actually want to hang out with him? Yes, and no. In my opinion, this scene wasn’t about lying, or telling the truth; Bellison was conveying what he wanted (which would probably tell you about his morals; that is, suicide is bad, and giving him company was good).
As the movie progresses, you begin to realize the irrelevancy of lies and truths, because in the end, you act on what you want. McDoogles continuously refused to marry Bellison on the basis that their children would look ‘like him’ (chubby with snub-noses), even though she loved him. In the end, Bellison did not want the truth (I don’t want chubby, snob-nosed children/I love you), or a lie (I want to have chubby, snub-nosed children)– he just wanted to know what McDoogle wanted (I want to marry you because I love you/I don’t want to marry you because I don’t want snub-nosed children).
But at the same time, the movie also shows the complexity of lying, and we are faced with the famous question: is it wrong to lie? I think Bellison shows lying can be OK in some cases, because really, what’s so immoral about not telling the truth? Take storytelling: in the movie, cinema is dominated by documentaries because fiction is considered lying. Wizards don’t exist – JK Rowling must be a liar. There are no such things as Jedi, either, therefore George Lucas must be a liar.
So, Rowling and Lucas are liars… but does that make them immoral? I don’t think so – it just makes them liars. Why? Because they didn’t make those movies to wrong us in some way. Similarly, if someone should come up to you, and said, ‘I lied.’ You would probably ask, ‘Well, what did you lie about?’ because you need to know the context in which they lied to accurately judge if he or she is immoral (I lied to save a person’s life vs. I lied to hurt somebody). Parents tell their children that ‘you should always tell the truth, and never lie’. Rather,should they say, “You shouldn’t tell lies to hurt people” to which they should also say, “You shouldn’t tell the truth to hurt people”.
The movie shows us the acceptability of lying when Bellison’s mother was fearful of death, so he told her there wasn’t ‘infinite nothingness’, so she wouldn’t die afraid. Some might say lying to your own mother was immoral – perhaps he should’ve just told the truth for the sake of being moral. But if you agree that causing pain, or allowing pain to continue, is immoral, then in this case, Bellison made the ethically correct decision as he eased the pain. Telling the truth would’ve inflicted more pain, therefore, telling the truth in this case would’ve been the immoral decision. Thus, telling the truth can be as immoral or moral as lying.
In conclusion, the area between lying and telling the truth is a grey one because the ethics can change depending on one’s intentions. If you want to cause pain, then it’s immoral; if you want to ease pain, then it’s all right, no matter if it’s telling the truth or lying. But then you also have to take into account the long-term effects – will telling a lie now release pain momentarily, only to cause pain permanently later on? Or will telling the truth now cause pain momentarily to only release pain permanently in the future? There can also be different interpretations of somebody’s lie/truth telling. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t go that deep, which would’ve made it a better movie in my opinion. But alas, it’s only a romantic comedy, so what can you expect?
But we also can’t forget the religious aspect – I can just hear those bible-thumpers now. I’m a Christian, and I can confidently say that ‘The Man in the Sky’ bit was not religious propaganda – in fact, who said it didn’t endorse Christianity? Just because Bellison was the first who spoke of the implied God, seemingly scrambling to think of something to tell the people, doesn’t make him the creator of God. God communicated through people long before a physical embodiment of him (Jesus) even came to Earth. Abraham was one of the first to speak of God, because God told him of Himself. This just makes Gervais a tool vessel for communication between God and the people. Besides, religion was created by humans – but that does not mean they created God.
In the end, the movie was mediocre, but can inspire some profound thought about the nature of truth and lies, and human nature.
