“The Invention of Lying” And That’s the Truth

And That’s the Truth

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

THE INVENTION OF LYING is a delightful little film that examines how life would be boring if everybody told the truth all the time and how life would be so much more interesting if we just bent the truth in small ways or in large.

Yes, it is a romantic comedy with social overtones.

Ricky Gervais plays Mark, and he is going to have the distinction of telling the world’s first lie when he is put in a situation in which he realizes that he could improve his circumstances if he just said something that didn’t reflect how things actually were.

However, before we get to that momentous event, we watch Mark go out on a first date with Anna, played by Jennifer Garner.

Only the audience is surprised when Anna greets Mark at the door and says, “Hi. You’re early. I was just masturbating.”

Now, you might think that the movie starts off slow, but it gets better as it goes along, especially when you pay attention to the background and all the signs and advertising. Truth in advertising might be refreshing, but it also sure would be boring.

Well, one day Mark needs to clean out his bank account of $300, but when he gets to the bank, the teller says that the computer isn’t working and asks him how much money he has in his account.

Mark has a brilliant thought, and he tells her a number other than 300, and she gives him that amount while apologizing that the computer is down.

Mark is able to turn his life around just by saying things that aren’t really, well, “true,” and he convinces Anna to go out on a second date with him.

But the biggest change occurs when Mark visits his mother in the “Sad Place Where Homeless Old People Come to Die,” which we would call an “Old Folks Home.”

His mother is concerned about dying and her life turning into black nothingness, and so Mark comforts her by making up a story that she is instead going to go to a wonderful place of happiness that is watched over by a “Man in the Sky.”

The story spreads, other people learn about it, and Mark’s life changes completely.

THE INVENTION OF LYING is funny, will ruffle some feathers, and that’s the truth.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”