Truth begins to unravel...
"While it never tops the explosive hilarity of its first 20 minutes, The Invention of Lying is a smartly written, nicely layered comedy that, like last year's underappreciated Ghost Town, casts Ricky Gervais as a mild-mannered schlub who manages, in spite of himself, to make the world a better place" says the opening line of James Chang's review in Variety of the new Gervais movie that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last night. Yes, I'm talking about Gervais again but I'm desperate not to do this movie a disservice after I think I rather neglected Ghost Town last year, and that movie firmly deserved better. Yeah I gave it a nice review, but by then it was pretty much too late. The U.S. box office had already made it's mind up. I'm hoping this one, which is far easier as a commercial sell, will do so much better. The Hollywood Reporter's Michael Rechtshaffen also agrees on the hilarious first act for Lying, which doesn't quite sustain... "The first half-hour of The Invention of Lying, co-directed and co-written by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, is so sharply fresh, clever and laugh-out-loud hilarious that you can't help but wonder how they'll sustain it for another hour. To be honest, they can't. But even when it's merely mildly amusing, this inspired parable, set in a parallel universe where only the truth is spoken, is so wittily winsome you'll readily cut Gervais and Robinson some slack if they don't quite succeed in going the distance". The Invention of Lying opens Oct. 2nd... and once again I suggest you don't read the reviews in full as they give away Gervais' REAL agenda with the film, which is a far larger concept than what you might think from the premise alone.