| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
A- |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
A- |
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Amazing this movie made it into American theaters
by Dogon (movies profile)
Oct 17, 2009
1
of
2 people found this review helpful
When I saw "Invention of Lying" rated higher with the critics than with the users, I was pretty sure I knew why that was going to be. And sure enough, I see that all the sharply negative user reviews are from offended christians.
Well, boo-frickity-hoo. The only reason this film seems so shocking to the religious is that their viewpoint pervades almost everything else we see, from "It's a Wonderful Life" to "The Exorcist." It's not strident atheist polemic, it's just gentle mockery. If the world has room for "Touched By An Angel" and "Fireproof" and "City of Angels" and "Bruce (or Evan) Almighty" and the various versions of "A Christmas Carol" and all the other films and television that take the christian mythos as given, it has room for this film too. Even Gervais' previous film "Ghost Town" accepts and promotes popular religious mythology (in this case, spirits and the afterlife), and I don't see people complaining about that. Two cliches come to mind here: "You can dish it out, but you can't take it," and "[bleep] 'em if they can't take a joke." So the film doesn't believe in god, and you do; well, now you know how just about every other film that touches on religion makes secular people feel, so it's time to do some of the suck-it-up-and-take-it that the religious so often recommend the secular should do.
As for the film itself, it's more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny. Gervais is British, and here he has made an American film with a British sensibility - understated and clever rather than overloaded with hilarity. This gives the audience room to appreciate the points the film makes, and think about them a little. This is not what American audiences are generally comfortable with, especially when a sacred cow is being gored, but it makes the film seem amiable rather than obnoxious as it could have been.
About the complaints of false advertising: What do you expect from a film with this title? More seriously, film trailers seldom show exactly what to expect from a film; they show cherry-picked scenes to SELL the film, and that is how you sell an irreligious romantic comedy in America: by selling it as a romantic comedy. I'm surprised the film got released in America at all, given the scorching intolerance it is bound to be met with, as it has been here. This will probably damage Jennifer Garner's career temporarily; the rest of the stars are already either outsiders or iconoclasts and won't be so affected. Too bad for Garner, because this amiable and low-key film doesn't really earn the level of hysteria it is about to unleash. |
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