The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson, 2009)

Ricky Gervais's U.S. film career seems to have settled in a niche of middling comedies with a fantastical twist: in Ghost Town, he alone saw the dead, and here he alone has realised how to lie. Setting Gervais's character thus apart in some way from the rest of humanity is a logical move in so much as we're never going to buy the misanthrope as warm-hearted, nor with that residual David Brent rictus grin as wholly sincere or dependable.
Nevertheless, The Invention of Lying does seem to be trying to push Gervais as a potential romcom lead in the sad puppy mould. He does the exasperation part fine, as he finds to his chagrin that his slightest overstatement is taken entirely at face value by the world at large, but his acts of philanthropy are a whole lot harder to swallow, never mind the tissue-thin set-up that never properly engages with the deeper implications of a fantasy world where somehow everything is just as it is now, bar everyone being utterly literal. It sails along pleasantly, raising a few smirks, and is then never heard of again.

5/10