“Inventive comedies?” Wow!  Is that as lame as it sounds?  You can be honest. Come on, tell the truth.  

 

 

Working with co-writer and co-director Matthew Robinson, Gervais has come up with a simple but clever premise -- a world where everyone tells the truth.  No matter how blunt, degrading, insulting or depressing, it just keeps spewing out of people’s mouth.  Lying doesn’t exist.

 

And what’s it like living in a world where people continuously reveal the way they feel about themselves -- and you?  Well, if you’re one of the beautiful people like Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) or Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe), it’s wonderful.  Compliments flow throughout the day, and with all that reassurance, success and happiness quickly follow.  But, if you’re “fat” and “pugged nosed” like Gervais’ Mark Bellison, things aren’t all that great.  

 

When we first meet Mark, his world is falling apart.  He’s waiting to be fired -- a fact everyone knows. (It appears in a world without lying, there are also few secrets.)  His mother is in a nursing home and on death’s door.  And it’s only a matter of time before someone calls him a “loser” -- again.  The only thing Mark has to look forward to is a date with Anna - though that’s shaping up to be another disappointment.  She immediately tells Mark that his appearance dooms any sort of relationship between them.  “I’m way out of your league,” she repeatedly reminds him.  Anna also straightforwardly admits she’s upset he has arrived early.  He interrupted her masturbating.  So much for the advantages of honesty.

 

Mark is a screenwriter for one of the country’s most prestigious movie studios, Lecture Films. The job consists of recounting historical events which are then read by a narrator sitting alone in front of the camera.  Yes, one of the things that seems to suffer the most in a truthful world is quality entertainment.  Unfortunately, Mark is saddled with writing about the 13th century -- and The Black Plague just isn’t wowing audiences. His boss (Jeffrey Tambor) reluctantly, but truthfully, tells Mark his services are no longer needed.

 

Broke and faced with eviction, Mark discovers one of the most ingenious devices ever conceived in his world -- the lie. The ease in which it works amazes him. As everyone believes what he’s saying is the absolute truth, he surmises that his lying can bring him anything he desires.  Testing his theory, he learns that his new found power easily leads to sex and wealth. This convinces him to up the ante and to use it not only to regain his job, but also to come up a with a tale so fantastic (it involves aliens and dinosaurs and is set in the 13th century!), he becomes the studio’s most popular and successful screenwriter.  But the biggest challenge still remains. Will it help Mark get what he truly wants -- Anna’s love?

 

It would be really interesting to see what might have happened to this premise if left to the sensibilities of... say.... an Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey.  No doubt it would have devolved into a mess of obvious and crude jokes, unfunny slapstick, and an over the top chase scene. Thankfully, Gervais serves up a more ambitious exploration.  

 

About halfway through the film, as Mark is watching his mother die, he comforts her with a vision of the afterlife.  She fears there will be nothing.  He describes a place filled with promise and hope.  His mother dies happy, but Mark’s life is about to change forever.  Her doctor and nurses have overheard Mark and are mystified by his revelations.  After all, to them, it is the absolute truth.  

 

By the next day, Mark is being hailed as the new messiah.  Pressed for details, he lays out a set of commandments (written out on two pizza box tablets) that tell of a “Man in the Sky” and a set of rules to get to an afterlife -- offering a mansion for everyone and ice cream every day.  Mark quickly becomes the most important person in the world.  If only he were better looking, Anna would marry him in a heartbeat.

 

 

The filmmakers get plenty of laughs out of the initial premise, leaving few stones unturned.  Even advertising gets poked at.  A Coke commercial truthfully tells how bad the drink is for you, but urges everyone to keep downing it because it is so popular.  Pepsi honestly realizes its second choice position and asks people to buy it when Coke isn’t available.  Though many of the best jokes come out of people’s mouths, make sure you read all the signs.  Their blatant honesty is equally as funny.

 

When the time is right, Gervais moves on from these jokes to milk the humor in being able to lie in this environment. Highlights include Mark trying to convince his friends he is lying, his ploy to have sex with a beautiful woman, and a run-in with a overly aggressive cop.  And as ambitious as the major themes of the movies are, they never come off as heavy-handed.

 

Gervais’ sweet and sincere demeanor helps to make the comedy work.  He more than lives up to his duties as leading man.  Garner is equally winning as the object of his affection. Though she vapidly rejects Mark, you do get the sense that she does cares for him.  Jonah Hill and Louis C.K. make the most of their scenes as Mark’s friends, while Lowe seethes snarkiness as his annoying rival.  

 

 

 

“Truth be told!” Oops, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?