Crazy, Stupid, Love

Crazy, Stupid, Love

In a summer full of wizards, robots, aliens, and superheroes, Hollywood knows that some people **cough**women**cough** want something a little softer, a little funnier, a little more romantic. Well, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” is that movie... more or less. To be more exact it is another of the recent string of RomComs that are focusing more on the comedy than the romance, and this is very much to the film's benefit.

Lets see if I can briefly explain the relationships between the major players here. Cal (Steve Carell: “The Office”) and Emily (Julianne Moore: ”Blindness”) are a longtime married couple. Cal thinks things are fine until Emily reaveals that she has been having an affair with David (Kevin Bacon: “Stir of Echoes”), and wants a divorce. Cal is stunned, but it's not as if he's unloved as, unbeknownst to him, the babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) is in love with him. Unfortunately she's seventeen, and Cal and Emily's son., Robbie (Jonah Bobo: “Zathura”) is in love with her.

While wallowing in his sorrows, Cal meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling: “Blue Valentine”), a true player who takes pity on Cal, and decides to help him become more of a ladies man (or at least more of a man). Jacob is the very picture of confidence and swagger, seemingly able to get any woman he sets his sights on; any woman that is except Hannah (Emma Stone: ”Zombieland”, ”Easy A”), a young law student whose plans revolve around marrying her boyfriend, Richard (singer, Josh Groban).

Does all of that make sense? I hope so, because it actually gets a little more confusing as the film progresses.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” is a RomCom seemingly made with the knowledge that women are going to drag their men to these things anyway, so lets make them appeal to both genders. In fact so much time is spent in the film focusing on the interaction between Carell's awkward, middle-aged office drone and Gosling's slick, shallow player that this may all actually appeal a little bit more to men than women. Only a little though.

With a great cast and mostly good pacing, there's really only one big criticism I have about this film: The length. It's not so much that the film is about two hours long that is the problem, but that it climaxes (as far as the laughes go at least) a good thirty minutes before it ends. The last quarter of the film focuses on the more traditional feelings and relationships that one would expect from your average RomCom, and while this may appeal greatly to the core audience films like this target, for me this really took a lot of wind out of the picture's sails. This long eplilogue, with its confessions of love, and the moral of the story, drops what was a really good comedy up to that point down to just a, above average romantic comedy.

Not a great film, but as romantic comedies go this one is a little refreshing in that it will be easy for men to watch, and it does not go out of its way to portray Steve Carell's character as the bad guy in the situation, which is nice. It may not have superheroes or wizards, but what “Crazy, Stupid, Love” does have is a strong cast, a solid, emotional story for the stereotypical RomCom fan, and enough big laughs to keep everyone else from rolling their eyes too much.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” is in theaters now.

Friends With Benefits

When I first saw the trailer for the new film “Friends with Benefits” I could help but think, “Haven't I see this movie already? It came out back in January and was called 'No Strings Attached' , and it was a confused mess.” That's right, two movies in the same year with the same sex-without-emotional-attachment concept both starring members of the cast of “That 70's Show”. “But hey,” I thought, “At least it will be fun to write a bad review of it.” Of course what I didn't know is that it was directed by Will Gluck (“Easy A”); had I known that I might have gone in with higher expectations.

Mila Kunis (“The Book of Eli”) plays Jamie, a corporate recruiter who is trying to lure Dylan (Justin Timberlake: “The Social Network”) to New York to interview for a position with GQ magazine. She manages to win him over, and he trades his Los Angeles life for a new home in New York.

Of course the only person that Dylan knows in New York, aside from his new employees, is Jamie, and seeing as neither of them have much luck with dating due to their various personality issues they begin to hang out regularly. After a night of drinking and watching a hilariously bad romantic comedy (starring Jason Segel and Rashida Jones from ”I Love You, Man”) the discussion turns to sex as an activity instead of as an expression of emotion. The discussion quickly turns to an action, and the pair's emotion-free relationship begins.

“Friends With Benefits” wants to be to romantic comedies what the original “Scream” was to horror films; it completely takes the piss out of the genre while still being faithful to it. “No Strings Attached” sort of tried to do this by including ever RomCom trope ever into one film, and it ended up being a complete mess of a film, but this movie finds its focus and sticks with it. There are no zany best friends in this film, no beta couple, no jerkass trying to steal the heart of one of the main couple; it's just two people trying to be best friends who just happen to have sex with each other... a lot.

Of course the lack of wacky best friends and beta couples doesn't mean there is no supporting cast; there's a very strong one in fact. Through the course of the film we get to meet Jamie's mother (Patricia Clarkson: “Easy A”, Dylan's father (Richard Jenkins : “Six Feet Under”, “Hall Pass”), sister (Jenna Elfman: “Dharma and Greg), and nephew (Nolan Gould: “Modern Family”). Of course it would'nt be right to not mention who might be the funniest actor in the entire film: Woody Harrelson (”Zombieland”) as Tommy, GQ's manic sports editor.

There are also a lot of really fun cameos sprinkled throughout the film. Aside from Jason Segal and Rashida Jones, keep an eye our for appearances by Masi Oka (“Heroes”), Andy Samberg (”I Love You, Man”), Emma Stone (”Zombieland”, “Easy A”), and a very unusual appearance by Olympic athlete Shaun White.

While this movie is not ultimately as good as “Easy A”, it does manage to keep some of the fast-paced humour, as well as a loving willingness to mock its own genre. The movie's only real weakness is when they try to cram some conflict into the film. Even this stuff is entertaining, but it does not feel particularly natural, and it has a negative effect on the quality of the story.

At 109 minutes, “Friends With Benefits” is probably longer than it should be, but chances are that you'll be enjoying it enough to not notice. Its a fast, funny, crude movie that eschews Easy A's walking of the PG-13 boundaries for full-on R rated language and even a bit of nudity (and not all of it Justin Timberlake's arse). What it's not however is a must see. Compared to “No Strings Attached” it's an absolute masterpiece, but taken on its own it's nothing to get too excited about. I don't suggest paying full theater dollars for this, but it is certainly worth giving a rent.

“Friends With Benefits” is in theaters now.

Something Borrowed

At first, “Something Borrowed”, based on the novel by Emily Giffin, seems like it is just going to be another run of the mill romantic comedy. Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin: “Big Love”) has a crush on Dex (Colin Egglesfield: “All My Children”), a guy she went to law school with, but she has never told him how she feels because she doesn't believe that he could ever feel that way about somone quiet and mousey like her, but that's not the problem. You see, Dex is engaged to Rachel's lifelong best friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson: “Bride Wars”), whom she introduced him to in the first place, but that's not the real problem either.

The problem is, that on the night of her thirtieth birthday, Rachel confesses her feelings to Dex, expecting him to just laugh it off, but he doesn't. In fact, he admits that he had the same feelings about her, but thought that it was she who was not interested. So now, with only months until Darcy and Dex are due to get married, he and Rachel must figure out what exists between them while keeping the whole thing a secret from Darcy.

To further complicate things, Darcy keeps trying to pair Rachel up with Dex's neanderthal, manchild of a friend, Marcus (Steve Howey: “Stan Helsing”), who seems to be willing to sleep with anything with a pair of breasts. Then there's Ethan (John Krasinski: “The Office”), who is a mutual friend of Darcy and Rachel, and seems to be almost the personification of Rachel's conscience when he's not busy trying to hide from Claire (Ashley Williams: “Good Morning, Miami”), a woman obsessed with him after a poorly thought out one night stand.

Now what makes this a unique RomCom to me is that fact that the audience is expected to root for a protagonist who is attempting to steal her best friend's fiance. It's not just Rachel who is a bad person though, it's everyone. Darcy is an alcoholic attention-whore, Dex is seriously considering dumping his fiance for Rachel, Marcus is just a sleazeball, and Ethan won't be honest with Claire about his lack of interest in her. If anything, the only character who's not scummy in this film is Claire, who may be a bit of an overbearing nutter, but at least she's honest in her dealings with the other characters.

It's not just the scumminess of the characters that set this film apart from other films in the genre though, it's the attention given to minor characters. Marcus and Ethan, both of whom seem like they should just be minor characters are actually very well fleshed out. I was especially susprised to see Marcus get a couple of scenes where he is allowed to be a little bit more than just a horndog; it's nice to see a character that could easily have been two-dimensional get to be a little genuine, even if it is in a slimey sort of way.

The person who steals a lot of scenes though is Ethan. When he's not busy trying to hide from Claire, or be Jiminy Cricket to Rachel's Pinnochio, he gets to be Captain Snarker. A lot of the movie's funniest lines are delivered by him, as he seems to almost act as a vocalization for whatever is going on in Rachel's mind. Basically amp up Krasinski's character on “The Office” a couple of notches, and you will have a fairly good idea of who Ethan is.

Of course all this time spent on minor characters pads the movie out a bit, and by a bit I mean a lot. The film is almost two hours long, which is a bit much for a pretty light chick flick like this. Usually when a movie is this long, I can think of scenes I would cut out, but that's not the case this time; everything is either too funny to cut, or it's actually important to the plot. In the interest of full disclosure, the screening I attended was not air conditioned, and by the film's end it had to be around ninety degrees in there, so that may have influenced my issues with the length a little.

All in all, this is a fun film, and it stays surprisingly light despite its subject matter, but I could not help but feel a little oogy cheering on a homewrecker. Yes, the film goes out of its way to make Darcy as unlikable as possible without actually making her hateful, but what Rachel and Dex are doing cannot help but feel immoral to me. I still liked their characters, but this is definitely a film where there are no black hats or white hats, just lots and lots of gray hats.

Even though “Something Borrowed” is almost certainly going to get crushed under the heel of “Thor” at the box office, it is a nice alternative for people not into the mullet-wearing hammer-wielder, and you could certainly find a worse alternative out there. If you like your girly RomCom characters to have the morality of the guys from “The Hangover”, and you want a movie that has a number of genuinely funny moments then I would definitely recommend that you check out “Something Borrowed”, just maybe don't take your best friend with you.

“Something Borrowed” will steal your boyfriend in theaters Friday, May 6th.

No Strings Attached

Ah, the romantic comedy; you already know the general plot, right? Boy meets girl, they fall in love despite boy being a dweeb/loser/fat/womanizer, but then boy screws things up and loses girl so boy has to win girl back before it's too late and she goes off with cool jerk/moves away/gets herself to a nunnery. “No Strings Attached” is the new RomCom from director Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters”) starring Ashton Kutcher (“That 70's Show) and Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) as our couple-to-be, but this movie does play the story a little bit different.

Adam (Kutcher) and Emma (Portman) originally met as kids at summer camp, but it isn't until they meet again ten years later that a real spark starts up between them. They are clearly attracted to each other, but as Emma describes herself as not being very affectionate this meeting results in one very awkward not-date before they go their separate ways again.

Jump ahead to the present and Adam has a job as an assistant on a television show that looks to have take more than a little inspiration from “High School Musical”, and Emma is working through her residency at the local teaching hospital. Adam is not having a good time of it; he's just found out that his ex-girlfriend has hooked up with his father (Kevin Kline), and in a night of drunk-dialing, Adam calls every woman he knows trying to find one to have sex with him. This is how Emma and Adam finally end up together.

I said before that this film flips the standard RomCom script a little bit, and the flip is that the conflict in their relationship is not the fault of Adam. Kutcher actually does a good job of dialing down his seemingly natural douchiness and playing a really genuinely nice guy; it's Emma that's the problem. While Adam would happily enter into a relationship, Emma does not like them; she compares being in a relationship to having an allergic reaction to peanuts. What she really wants is someone to have sex with with no complications, no jealousy, no strings attached (ah ha!), so they become “sex friends”. How long can this last though? Can Adam not push her away by trying to pull her closer? Can Emma stop herself from having human emotions? Can they really stretch this story out to almost two hours? Well, the answer to the last question is a resounding yes.

This movie is long, too long. Two hours is a good length for a fantasy epic, or a historical drama, but it is too long for a movie like this. It would not be so bad if they simply kept to scenes that contributed to the story. The problem with doing that is that a lot of the funniest scenes (Adam's mix CD is a perfect example) do nothing but take up time, while the scenes that forward the story tend to be rather meh. At times the film feels like the writers had great ideas for scenes, but no way to make them relevant, but decided leave them in anyway. There are easily thirty minutes worth of fluff that could have been trimmed out which would have saved me a lot of watch checking.

Another thing that seems to add to the length is the sheer number of stock RomCom characters present in the film. You have Adam's funny friends, Jake and Eli (Ludacris and Jake M. Johnson), who are not all that funny. You have Emma's roommates/friends, Patrice (Greta Gerwig), the BFF, Shira (Mindy Kaling), the snarker, and Guy (Guy Branum), the gay guy, none of whom get much of a chance to shine. There's the beta couple, fulfilled by Eli and Patrice, who seem to be more interested in staying out of the conflict than helping their respective friends in a more traditional beta couple role. Then there's the standard handsome mature jerk who wants Emma for himself, Sam (Ben Lawson), whose subplot is dropped before it ever really gets going. Finally there's the other woman, Lucy (Lake Bell), who is far too nice to deserve to be caught in the splash damage from Emma and Adam's relationship, but that's okay, because her subplot lasts even less time than Sam's (honestly, I liked her character better than Emma, even though they try to make her REALLY annoying towards the end).

Aside from all those characters fighting for screen time, there's the aforementioned Kevin Kline as Adam's actor father, and, most confusingly, Cary Elwes as one of the doctors at Emma's hospital. Kline is actually quite fun to watch in this movie, but I say that Elwes is the most confusing because his role has no significance; it could have been played by any no name actor. While he does appear in a number of scenes, he only has three or four lines and spends most of his screen time looking confused. I imagine that he was wondering why he was even there; I know I was.

Naturally Kutcher and Portman take most of the screen time, and they both do a good job. Kutcher shows some real range in this, breaking free of the personality built by years of “That 70's Show” and “Punk'd” to create a character that is at the same time fun and a little goofy, but still a mature, likable person. Portman's character is not quite as likable, but the exact roots of her damage are never explored (there is one scene that tries to explain it, but if you watched the film's first ten minutes then this explanation will not make sense). Portman's Emma tends to be all over the place as far as her personality goes, but this seems to be the result of the writers and director being unsure what is really wrong with her rather than any fault of Natalie Portman.

This film is a bit of a mediocre mess, even by romantic comedy standards. It tries to use a reasonably unique premise, but it gets so caught up in playing with as many RomCom tropes as it can that it turns into a rambling mess of minor characters with nothing to do fighting for a reason to be there. It's almost as if Ivan Reitman were trying to troll the crowd that likes traditional romantic comedies by turning traditional roles on their ear, but even if that was his goal, it just comes across as a poor effort. The movie does have a few good laughs, and seeing Natalie Portman swerve around drunkenly while cursing is quite amusing, but it's not enough to redeem this. Even compared to some of last year's efforts, like“Going the Distance” or “She's Out of my League” this movie falls well short of what a good romantic comedy should be, and what it could have been.

Unless you really want to see Ashton Kutcher's bare ass on a big screen (sorry guys, Portman never appears in less than modest underwear), there are just better ways to spend your time and money this weekend. It's too long, and while it does try to be everything a romantic comedy should be, it ends up missing that target by a lot. Spend your money on something better this weekend.

“No Strings Attached” is in theaters now.

Life As We Know It

In 2007 organized, stable, snarky Holly Berenson (Katherine Heigl: “Grey's Anatomy”) and laid-back, skirt-chasing, but equally snarky Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel: “When in Rome”) are set up on a blind date by their mutual friends, Peter and Allison. Things do not go well. Three years later when the unthinkable happens to Peter and Allison the pair find themselves left as guardian's of the friends' child. Can they put aside their dislike of each other as well as their plans for their own lives to raise a kid together?

“Life As We Know It” is the new Drama-Rom-Com hitting theaters this Friday from director Greg Berlanti. This looks to only be his second time in the director's chair, he doesn't do a spectacular job of bringing this story to the screen, but then it's not really a spectacular story, so it works out okay. After slapping you upside the head with the tragedy stick about thirty minutes in, the movie becomes a pretty standard rom-com with a large portion of unprepared-parent-comedy thrown in

The whole film is fairly straight forward and predictable. Poop jokes? Check! Fussy baby jokes? Check! Male and female leads clearly being jealous when the other is with someone else even though they claim to still hate each other? Check, check, and double-check! I'm not saying the movie is not funny or entertaining, I'm merely saying that you are not going to have your socks knocked off.

Heigl and Duhamel do a fine job playing their fairly standard issue rom-com characters, but they never really go the extra mile for laughs. For me the characters who stand out the best are the baby, Sophie (played by Alexis, Brynn, and Brooke Clagett) whose expressive face steals more than a few scenes from her adult co-stars, and Sarah Burns (“I Love You, Man”, “Going the Distance”) as CPS investigator Janine Groff. Both characters are underused though, and this seems somewhat worse with Sophie since the movie sort of revolves around her, but she is used more as a prop and plot device than a full fledged character a lot of the time. I would also liked to have seen a lot more of Burns' character in the film as she was a bit more entertaining than the main couple, a fact that I think even the writers realized as she plays a prominent role during the movie's climax despite there being no real stated motivation for her to do so.

This is clearly a film intended for women (I know, a rom-com with a baby in it not being geared towards men, who'da thunk it?), and with that in mind you can expect to see a lot of a sweaty Josh Duhamel without his shirt on. Sorry guys, there is no eye candy for you here; the closest Katherine Hiegl gets to fan service is on brief scene in a bath towel that could easily have been a cheesecake-y, but isn't.

Ultimately, “Life As We Know It” is a funny, sweet film that is not easy to genuinely dislike, but is not easy to recommend either. The movie is a little too paint-by-numbers, and, at times, feels like an idea for a WB sitcom that got salvaged from some recycle bin and re-purposed. If you've seen more than a couple of romantic comedies in your life then you know how this is going to end before the lights even go down. It's not bad, but it's not worth theater-money either. I suggest waiting for it to come out on DVD, and go see something else on the big screen this weekend.



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Flipped

Based on the YA novel of the same name, “Flipped” is the latest movie by director Rob Reiner (“Stand By Me”, “Misery”, “The Bucket List”). To briefly sum up this film, it is a nostalgia inducing romantic comedy about a pair of pre-teens. The even more briefly sum up this film, it is award bait.

When Juli Baker (played first by Morgan Lily, then by Madeline Carroll) first sees Bryce Loski (Ryan Ketzner, then Callan McAuliffe) and his family moving in across the street from her, she knows that he is destined to be her first kiss. Bryce views this same event quite differently, knowing that his new neighbor is destined to be a pain in his ass.

The story is told in a He Said, She Said format. After showing a series of events from one character's point of view things will then flip to show the same series of events from the other side, and the two versions of events may not necessarily exactly match (Bryce and Juli's first meeting is the best example of this) since we are dealing with potentially unreliable narrators.

Rounding out the core cast are Rebecca De Mornay, Anthony Edwards, John Mahoney, Penelope Ann Miller, and Aidan Quinn giving the film a strong, if not stellar class, stable of actors. At first they all seem like fairly shallow stereotypes of 1960's America, but as the story progresses the actors do a great job of showing their character's flaws, strengths, joys, and regrets. There is no resolution to any of these potential subplots, which is not something you see in many movies even if the book was that way, but it works here. It gives the movie almost an Adrian Mole kind of feel for me; that some things that happen are just things that happen. Not every small thing has to be foreshadowing to something greater down the road, and that gives the movie more of a real life feel. Life rarely wraps everything up neat and tidy in less than an hour and a half.

This kind of story telling would make a lesser movie feel too long, but “Flipped” feels a bit short if anything, coming in at under ninety minutes, even with all of the extra details that have no impact on the plot. I did walk out at the end of the movie wanting more, but that has more to do with the film's ending rather than its run time.

One of the most refreshing things about this movie is what makes it different from other, what I will call, Nostalgiacore films: there is no obvious political element to this movie. There's nothing in this about wars or civil rights. In fact the only even remotely political thing involves cutting down a tree. Sure there are a few things in it that would not be appropriate today (some sexism, for example), but they're not in the film to make us feel like we've come a long way; they're just there because they should be.

A reoccurring theme in “Flipped” is that people are more, or less, than the sum of their parts. The more I think about that, the more I realize that it applies to the film itself There's nothing spectacular here, the script is good, the acting is competent, the soundtrack is what you would expect from a film set in the sixties; it's all good, but none of it is really above average. However the film itself manages to somehow be better than just average; everything fits together just right to create an end product that is worthy of the award nominations it is looking for.

Aside from a couple of curse words (appropriate in context) “Flipped” is a good movie for the whole family to enjoy together. It's cheerful, sweet, and touching without being too syrupy. There are no explosions, no shootouts, no glittering vampires, or breathtaking CGI. There's just a solid film with a lot of heart. Not necessarily a must-see-in-theaters kind of movie, but certainly one you should see. “Flipped” hits theaters on August sixth.

"She's Out of My League"

Have you ever heard something to the effect of “A one doesn't get a ten”? If you haven't, it basically means that the ugly dork doesn't get the hottie, and it's true. There are ways of making your score go up or down, being rich, being in a band, having a nice car, etc, but there is only a certain disparity that can exist between you and your mate. It is this concept that backs up the plot of the new movie “She's Out of My League”.

“She's Out of My League” (which shall be referred to as SOML from here on, as I am too lazy to keep typing it) is the story of Kirk (Jay Baruchel: “Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist”), a TSA screener at the Pittsburgh airport who cannot get over his ex-girlfriend, Marnie (Lindsey Sloan), although it probably doesn't help that she works at the same screening station, and that his family seems to like her more than they do him.

Even though he is a bit of a loser, Kirk still has his close circle of friends. There's a the jerk, Stainer (T.J. Miller: “Cloverfield”), the almost cool guy, Jack (Mike Vogel: “Cloverfield”), and the nice guy, Devon (Nate Torrence: “Get Smart”). They work together, they hang out together, and they alternately jeer and cheer Kirk on for the decisions he makes and has made with his life.

So Kirk is living his craptastic life until the day that Molly (Alice Eve) comes through his checkpoint and loses her iPhone. Molly's bitchy friend, business partner, and airplane seat mate, Patty (Krysten Ritter: “Breaking Bad”) calls the phone and Kirk answers. Molly sets up a time for Kirk to return the phone to her at an event she is organizing, where they hit it off, and the rest of the story is set in motion.

SOML is equal parts gross-out guy humour and romantic comedy, and is more reminiscent of films like “Meet the Parents” or “There's Something About Mary” than it is “The Hangover”. This makes for a decent date movie (although probably not a first date movie) as it never spends too long on either movie type at a time, and it is equally funny while in either mode.

I only had a couple of problems with this film. The first was that when we Molly enters the airport at the beginning every guy's head turns to her as if she were the hottest woman on Earth. I'm not saying she's not attractive by any stretch here, but I honestly thought that Patty was better looking, although she is a bitch which would lower her a point or two, but you're not going to get that just from her walking into an airport terminal. Clearly your mileage may vary on this based on your own likes and dislikes, so it's not worth dwelling on.

The second problem is that I could never totally buy the relationship between Molly and Kirk. In a movie where all the of the actors have great chemistry you have this alpha couple who just seem wrong for each other. I know that it is meant to be awkward, and I know you are supposed to spend half the movie waiting for her to dump him when someone better looking comes along, or for his low self-esteem to sabotage things, but it still never really worked for me. Their interactions seem just a little too awkward, forced almost. This would be a big problem if the movie wasn't otherwise as good as it is, but the fun script and believable interaction between the other characters cover for this flaw.

One of the best things in SOML has to be Nate Torrence's portrayal of Devon. Torrence steals every scene he is in whether he is refusing to curse for money, offering manscaping advice, or dropping Disney references in regards to Molly and Kirk's relationship. I could not help but smile every time he was on the screen. He brings an unflappable brightness to his role that made me believe that he would actually do some of the things his character does for his friend.

SOML is probably the best comedy in theaters right now, and if you are looking for a good laugh that you can have with your special someone this is likely your best bet. It's rude and crude, but still manages to be sweet when it counts. Compared to larger fare like “Alice in Wonderland” this is really only a rental, but if you just want to have a good time with an adult-oriented movie, then I recommend spending a little time finding out how you rate at “She's Out of My League” this weekend.

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"The Invention of Lying"

Imagine living in a world with no concept of fiction; no one has ever thought to tell a lie, there's not even a word for it. Of course when you have no concept of fiction you also have no fictional books, no acting, no art, no sarcasm, and even no religion (I'm sure some people will froth at the mouth over this). You have a world where everybody is as good as their word, and if someone says it, it must be true. Now imagine that you learn how to lie, and you have the basic premise of “The Invention of Lying”.

Mark (Ricky Gervais: “Ghost Town”, “The Office”) lives in this fiction-free version of the modern world, and is the standard Gervais character; he's a sad little pudgy loser, and no one likes him. There are a couple of things that set Mark apart from previous rolls though. First of all, everyone lets Mark know what they think of him to his face with no problems because even lies of omission do not exist in this world. It's like a world full of young children who still say what they think, and believe anything they are told, no matter how outrageous.

Like all Ricky Gervais characters, Mark is getting older, is a failure at his job, and is alone, but the other thing that sets Mark apart from Bertram Pincus or David Brent is that he's not the worst person in the film; he's not even a bad person. Mark really is the good guy, and with the exception of his friend, Greg (Louis C.K.: “Lucky Louie”) and his neighbor, Frank (Jonah Hill: “Superbad”) it is pretty much everyone else in this movie that are the horrible people. For once Gervais plays the victim that his former rolls perceived themselves to be.

“The Invention of Lying” is a romantic-comedy, so naturally there must be a love interest; her name is Anna (Jennifer Garner: “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”, “Alias”). Anna is a successful executive (at what the film never says), and she's certainly friendly enough, but she is so shallow that even when she sees Mark for the great guy he is, she doesn't care. Anna is basically a self-absorbed teenaged girl for most of the movie, and that goes a long way to making her very unlikable. I found myself rooting for Mark to simply give up on her.

I will admit that I went into this movie disliking the concept; it seems like an idea for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch grown to horrific proportions, and parts of the film do feel like they were sketch ideas. Some scenes, like scene in the trailer where Mark tells a random blond woman that the world will end if they do not have sex, are almost standalone gags that demonstrate the relative innocence of the people in this world, but do little to add to the overall story.



That said though, I really wanted to like this movie. The cast is fantastic, with appearances by Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jeffery Tambor, Christopher Guest, Stephen Merchant, Jason Bateman, John Hodgeman, and more. It's like the movie is one giant in-joke to have attracted all of these actors, many of which only appear in one or two scenes, and all of whom are fantastic. In the hands of less talented performers this movie could have been truly dreadful.

It is almost impossible to not want to like this film, but I just didn't. It felt like a movie that had been made on a dare, or perhaps it was someone's idea of a joke that was taken as a serious idea and then got out of hand. The premise is just too flimsy to carry the film for a full hour and a half. T is just too hard for me the believe that the world could advance to this point without anyone lying, or even not voicing their opinions about everything.

One thing that really does make make this movie stand out to me is that it does provide a chance for Gervais to step outside of his normal awkwardness and have a little genuine emotion. I cannot recall ever seeing one of his characters show anything more than disappointment or annoyance before, but he pulls it off convincingly. I'm not saying that Ricky Gervais should start doing heavy dramatic roles, but it is nice to see that he does have some range.

Compared to Gervais' last Rom-Com outing, “Ghost Town”, this movie falls a little flat as it wanders around exploring the effects that the world's first liar has on the people around him, the film industry, and the concept of an afterlife. The romantic aspect of the film is seemingly forgotten for long stretches of time between sketches, and it isn't until around the last fifteen minutes that we get to the standard boy-has-to-get-girl-back portion of the story. Perhaps if the story had kept its focus a little bit better, it wouldn't feel so much like it was missing something at the end.

“The Invention of Lying” is fresh, quirky, funny, and entertaining, but it left me feeling a sense of dissatisfaction as I walked out of the theater. I could never get past the flaws inherent in the premise, but the parties involved deserve a lot of credit for making it work as well as it does. If you're not the sort of person who thinks critically about films, then you will probably like it. If you like Ricky Gervais, you will probably enjoy it. If you don't fit in one of those two categories, then you will probably want to wait for the film to hit DVD.

Maybe sometimes honesty is not the best policy, but if you want to find out for sure, you can when “The Invention of Lying” fibs its way into theaters on October 2nd.

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