The Invention/Creation/Evolution of Ricky Gervais

THE INVENTION OF LYING exists in a world where the concept of lying has never materialised. Everyone thus speaks exactly what they think, all the time. Gervais invents lying. Gervais becomes powerful through his invention. Gervais accidentally creates a religion after lying about an afterlife to his dying mother. Gervais becomes more powerful. Gervais cannot bring himself to use lying as a means to attract women.

For this is a film written, starring and directed by a singular creative force, it therefore bears a significant imprint of His personality. From the film’s very beginning (the opening credits) Ricky Gervais’ nasal voice is present criticising the production companies that appear on screen. The voice is the same as the film’s lead character yet its source is never identified, left to float beyond narrative into the non-diegetic. Gervais thus plays Himself; His character, His own personality and His own creation of ‘The Man in the Sky’ (a perverse, quasi-holy trinity).

Not a hindrance. Through Gervais sacrificing so much of His self to the film He sets a considerable impression of His fears/His loves/His hates upon it. His comic commodity is represented in full; complete with exasperated eye rolling, that wonderfully chipped smile and His broken delivery of a drowning man.

HIS FEARS are exorcised in the film’s opening half hour. Gervais systematically works through the insecurities He possesses by allowing other characters (that He has created!) to insult/degrade Him in a manner that flirts between the extremities of Pathos and the discomfort of self-loathing. The insults are not limited to His on-screen persona and situation (no money/may lose job), but predominantly extend to His own appearance (fat/snubby-nosed/unattractive). That these are physical aspects, ones that transcend character and are inescapable aspects of Himself, allude to the personal nature of Gervais’ anxieties. Indeed, the main problem lying between Gervais and complete happiness (Hilary Swank) is His own imperfect genes – that He cannot escape His fat/snubby-nosed/unattractive children He will undoubtedly create in procreation. To exhibit these anxieties in such a public manner (through the medium of film, and before that television and stand-up) project a portrait of Gervais as an anxious man.

HIS LOVES are inherent in the style of THE INVENTION OF LYING. The film, in its direction, contains a certain level of immaturity (or rather, innocence). But this only adds to its charm, as though all that Gervais knows about filmmaking has been absorbed from the generic romantic comedies the film’s narrative spine is based on. The sickly sweet dialogue/the message that one needs to look past appearance and see that which lies beneath/the constant violins soaring at any hint of emotion/the functional editing = a fresh enthusiasm for cinema, utilising the medium as a simple story teller. An approach unabashed by the experience of practical or the weight of theory. This never seems to annoy, and instead comes off as a sweet and charming disarmament. However, the innocence projected drowns the underlying theme of Atheism remarkably well. A masterstroke by Gervais if He wants to succeed in His beloved America.

HIS HATES, as alluded to above, are lost beneath the shine of an aesthetic designed for a white, American, middle-class Christian (male, conservative). That this wholly generic style of filmmaking is so drenched in a particular ideology makes the Atheist conscience of THE INVENTION OF LYING merely a sleeping depth. It is easy enough to be gently swayed by its undercurrents, but the film will never incite anyone to feel any differently (or rather, more actively) about their religious position. Thus, it is this very innocence that ceases THE INVENTION OF LYING from becoming a significantly Atheist text (a reading that should be bursting at its seams, but remains predominantly ignored). For an ideology to be successfully communicated (in a way that encourages activism/debate/empowerment) it can evidently not be to the passive spectator classical narrative editing conditions. Although a brave full debut from Gervais, and a theme He will hopefully become more confident with in the future, THE INVENTION OF LYING never breaks from its genre’s norms. It is merely a silent step in the right direction.