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The Invention Of Lying
Written and Directed by Ricky Gervais and Matt Robinson
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Christopher Guest, Stephen Merchant, Shaun Williamson
Before any pedantic readers barge in - this isn't a film offering information on the origins of reclining postures. The word
here defines not giving in or giving up just to satisfy someone's quest for what they think they want to hear. 'Honesty is
the best policy' or 'what you don't know won't hurt you' are hackneyed passive proverbs still in regular use. Ricky Gervais
(with help from Matthew Robinson)'s new film, The Invention of Lying features the device of not actually having a word for
Ricky's character's sudden brainstorm when he's caught in a financial pickle. In the hands of the right person it can actually
assist towards making this world a better place. Ricky Gervais is the right person and The Invention of Lying deserves to
take its place as a modern comedy classic, it's that good.
As the film opens, we arrive in an alternative world where everyone takes a blunt approach to life and conversation -
in this world compliments, dishonesty and cynicism simply don't exist. Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) heads off on a date with
the gorgeous Anna (Jennifer Garner), but is blown apart by the the knowledge that she doesn't fancy him in the slightest -
informing him that he is unattractive, there will be no sex and certainly no second date. The "chubby, snub-nosed"
Mark isn't respected even at work where he's a screenwriter for true-life historical events read out loud to the audience
(a winning cameo by the sublime Christopher Guest) and one of many short appearances from several well-known faces. (Since
fiction doesn't exist, actors can't very well pretend to be someone else can they?) Mark discovers from his cheesy rival,
Brad (Rob Lowe) and Shelley (Tina Fey), the secretary who has always believed she was better than him, that he's about to
be fired and later that he's about to be evicted. With only $300 in his bank account, Mark arrives upon the decisive life-changing
moment which begins to resolve all these hassles.
Once he sets off on his adventure, Mark is astonished at how easy it is to fool everyone, even briefly convincing his
chums in a bar that he's a black eskimo. Mark's inevitable new celebrity status as a writer and the adulation that is thrust
upon him can't however adequately prepare him for what develops.
Gervais and Robinson have managed to bridge a gap between scathing satire and perpetual humanism. Reactionary types may
feel a little uneasy at the conclusions being drawn, but the film doesn't really mock them, nor their beliefs. Admitted atheist
Gervais understands the need for those to placate their fears in body and soul and would rather rib the ones with either a
lack of creative thinking or who don't understand how to treat their fellow man without fear of damnation. The main comic
section in the film where Mark lays out his newfound knowledge on the hereafter and "The Man In The Sky" to the
gathered mob outside his home is absolutely brilliant, and provides some sublime humour.
Fans of Ricky Gervais (and undoubtedly I am one) know full well his ability to skewer the absurd and his fearlessness
in mining uncomfortable subjects for comedy. His live stand-up tours make gags at the expense of the Holocaust, autism and
homosexuality and not one ever fails to hit its mark. We all recall David Brent from The Office as being one of the most obnoxious,
out-of-touch characters ever created, but many aren't too quick to remember how Gervais made us sympathise with him and even
root for his happiness during the final Christmas party. Gervais is a master at these turnarounds as he's shown in both his
superb (and still grossly underrated) follow-up series, Extras, and his under-appreciated starring turn in the wonderful Ghost
Town. His character, Mark, is easily the most sympathetic role of his career and in an extremely tender and sensitive hospital
bedside scene with his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan), Gervais plays it with such sincerity and compassion that anyone focussed
on labelling his words as lies should feel ashamed.
The Soloist
Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Susannah Grant
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr., Catherine Keener,Tom Hollander, Lisagay Hamilton
What is it about classical music that imbues normally good filmmakers with a massive overdose of sentimentality? Joe Wright,
who impressed with his version of 'Pride & Prejudice' and followed up with his fine adaptation of 'Atonement', appears
to have fallen victim to this culture ailment when faced with the task of directing an apparently fact-based tale about a
highly unlikely relationship which develops between a Los Angeles journalist and a schizophrenic street musician whom he befriends.
In his hands - The Soloist seems more about making a statement than translating the story into an affecting drama. It really
is a total, unmitigated disaster - a catastrophe for all concerned, not least the poor cinemagoer.
The main problem lies with the central story - the discovery of troubled Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) by Los Angeles Times
columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) and the newsman's attempt both to write about the man and to help him recover something
of a normal life. Investigation reveals that Ayers had once been a quite promising cello student at the esteemed Juilliard
school of music before suffering a breakdown and taking to the streets. Besides reuniting the man with his sister (Lisagay
Hamilton), Lopez also blags him a cello and lessons with Graham Claydon (a God-bothering creep well-played by Tom Hollander),
the first chair of the LA Philharmonic. But while encouraging Ayers' love of music and getting him to reside in a room at
a local shelter, where the cello must be kept, rather than on the street, Lopez's efforts to reintegrate him with the world
seem to prove too much for the man's fragile mental state.
Potentially this could be quite a moving story, but Susannah Grant's script and Wright's treatment of it lack nuance and
subtlety. Everything is played in the broadest manner, from the whoosh of orchestral accompaniment that suddenly wells up
from the heavens when Ayers first puts his bow to the instrument (which then preposterously segues into an even more ludicrous
image of birds soaring off into the sky), to the aforementioned pompous religiosity of Claydon, which sets Ayers off when
he's about to give a recital (a cheap, patronising and melodramatic scene). Even Ayers' reaction to the music when Lopez gets
him into a rehearsal by the Philharmonic is extremely ill-judged. The strains of Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony - the work
that apparently obsessed Ayers throughout his life - reappears so often here that you really begin to dread its next coming.
Wright then bizarrely turns the screen into a multi-coloured light show, as though one were peering out from the inside of
a lava lamp. As a way of indicating the transporting power of the music, that's a crummy unimaginative shorthand that conveys
nothing other than the production team's creative shortcomings.
The persistent flashbacks, inserted to dramatise Ayers' backstory, first as a Ohio kid and then as a Juilliard student
are presented in a frenzied style, with garish colours and, in the breakdown sequences, ghostly voices superimposed on one
another on the soundtrack, are pretentious bilge.
Given all this, it's perhaps not surprising that the stars do not seem at their best. Foxx gives at best an average performance
in what amounts to a 'Rain Man'-type turn but lacks any real emotive substance. Although accomplished in purely technical
terms, he's flattened by the uninspired script that really doesn't take the viewer inside the man. I've actually never really
rated Foxx, seeing him as merely Denzel-lite. Downey, however, is even less impressive. Wright tries to play to the actor's
loose persona by allowing him a flippant style that reduces much of his dialogue to a sort of quirky riff, but his character
remains stubbornly opaque as, for example, in his extremely ill-defined relationship with his ex-wife Mary (Catherine Keener),
who works with him at the Times, but this simply does not come into focus and is just plain confusing. Downey's obviously
a very talented screen performer, but he fails to get a handle on this guy Steve Lopez, to clearly distinguish the character
from the actor. Also, what is the point of the persistent theme of urine in this? Lopez drops his specimen during a medical
test, slips on it and falls, and then later is doused with coyote urine when he's trying to hang bags of the stuff in the
trees near his house to ward off raccoons. I will resist the obvious temptation towards using this as a fish-rhyming metaphor
for the over-all standard of the film.
However, what really sinks 'The Soloist' is Wright's decision to turn what is essentially a two-person drama into a 'big-issue'
sermon about homelessness. The director's interpretation of the main story is bad enough, but it's blown up out of all proportion
by being set against the homeless shelter where Ayers' cello is kept, a place surrounded, as Wright and cinematographer Seamus
McGarvey depict it, in surrealistically horrifying and inappropriately protracted scenes by what appears to be a small army
of unfortunates, some authentically scary but many sweetly pathetic or eccentrically comic. The presumably intended personal
narrative gets lost in the wider picture of wretchedness and social unconcern that Wright paints with a very heavy hand, even
including a sequence of the mayor patronisingly dropping in to announce some new government funding.
Additionally, if even that wasn't hellish enough, Grant and Wright take the time to add a few scenes about the economic
plight of newspapers. As with the film version of 'State of Play' the atmosphere of the packed, harassed newsroom gets considerable
coverage here, however anachronistic that might be.
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