THE INVENTION OF LYING
Reviewed By Louise Hanrahan

We’ve all done it folks, telling the odd white lie to get us out of awkward situations.

Recently I went to see Ricky Gervais in this new comedy at Cineworld in Parnell Street. I’ll come clean, I’ve been a Gervais fan since ‘The Office’ and it has been great to see him thriving in Hollywood without toning down his comedy style at all. The Invention of Lying marks a new departure for Gervais, as he is the star of the film, a romantic comedy aimed at a mainstream American audience, not just aficionados of his earlier work.

In the film, Ricky plays Mark – a scriptwriter in a film company where he has always felt out of place in a world where everyone is compelled to tell the truth, no matter what the circumstances are, or what’s on their mind. He works alongside the beautiful Jennifer Garner, and after plucking up the courage to invite her on a date, she tells him that she is genuinely depressed and pessimistic the prospect of them getting together. On the date, even the waiter that serves them tells him Jennifer is way out of his league..

It’s even worse in the office, where he is bitterly rejected by all of his colleagues; they tell him they hate him to his face! His boss, played by a slick Rob Lowe, thrives on knocking Mark at every turn and putting him down. The Rob Lowe character has the charisma, charm and looks to woo the woman Mark loves and he feels like a total failure. To put a cap on it, he ends up getting the sack - poor Mark is totally washed up and can seem to do nothing right to please anyone.

But one day Mark stumbles upon something no one has experienced before – the world’s very first LIE. He enters a bank with nothing in his account and blatantly lies about his account to get the rent money, when the bank official hands him over nearly $700 his face lights up. He can’t believe his luck! From here on in, he becomes a new man. Full of confidence, positivity and assertiveness takes him over.

His life is transformed as he exploits the new found power of un-truth in a hundred different hilarious ways. One of Mark’s brightest and most popular ideas is the invention of God  or, as he calls him, "the man in the sky." The scene in which Mark writes 10 commandments on two pizza boxes and delivers the good news to the multitudes is worth comparison to Monty Python.

Worth a visit folks. It’s a total feel-good movie and would cheer you up in an instant.

Don’t forget the Popcorn!.

AN EDUCATION
Reviewed by Christy Hogan

I took in a matinee of the film ‘An Education’ at The Screen on D’Olier Street. The director is Lone Sherfig with a script by Nick Hornby. The film stars, amongst others, Emma Thompson, Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard and Rosamund Pike.

Jenny is a pretty sixteen year old girl. She lives with her strict parents in a lovely house in a fancy part of London. She’s burning the midnight oil studying for her exams. Her parents, who are in their fifties and must have married late in life, seem a bit snobby and stuffy and set in their ways.

They are adamant that their ‘precious’ is going to go to Oxford University. However, as the song goes ‘There may be trouble ahead’, and there is. One day, it is lashing out of the heavens and Jenny in walking home after her cello lesson. Enter David (Sarsgaard) the suave guy in his thirties in his big luxurious motor car. David offers Jenny a lift but she is a bit wary and says “no thanks.” David then turns on the charm and suggests that Jenny put her cello in the car to keep it dry.

daylights out of her parents. Jenny’s mundane life changes overnight. She and David attend London’s most happening concerts and the coolest late night jazz sessions, the glittering bohemiam life of early 60s London is laid out before her.

Jenny hangs out with David’s socialite friends and needles to say, her studies go down the pan. She’s drinking and smoking like a trooper, attending auctions and going on weekend trips to Paris. How David funds all this comes as a shock to Jenny and she’s not well pleased. She also learns another dark side to David as the alarm bells to ring.

In the end she bumps “Dave the Rave” and pleads to go back to collage and on to Oxford. There’s a bit of a hullabaloo at the college as Head mistress (Emma Thompson) is not well pleased with Jenny’s flirtations with the suave David. Without giving any more away, this coming of age film is long drawn out and could have had a bit more punch. The 1960s London atmosphere I enjoyed immensely. And well I might, it was my teenage years.