'Lying' lays out daring premise in a subtle way

"The Invention of Lying" tells such an imaginative, witty story with such likable main characters that you hardly notice the subversive idea festering at the core of its plot, that religion is one big, fat lie created to make frightened people feel better about their dull, shallow existences.

The movie doesn't exactly hammer this point home. It's almost an afterthought, a throwaway assertion in a daring, hilarious, fantastic premise that imagines a ruthlessly honest world where people cannot tell lies, or pass on any sort of misleading information.

Ricky Gervais - who codirects the comedy with first-time director/writer Matthew Robinson - brings his veddy dry British sense of humor to play Mark Bellison, a pudgy, nondescript man who writes boring screenplays for a company called Lecture Films.

Because no one tells untruths, fiction doesn't exist. The "movies" consist of narrators reading histories, or as the Lecture Films motto says, "We Film Someone Telling You About Things That Happened."

The opening of "The Invention of Lying" ranks as superior comedy, brimming with smarts and deft, deadpan performances.

Mark nervously prepares for his first date with sexy Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). He meets her and says, "How are you?"

Anna replies, "Frustrated at the moment, also equally depressed and pessimistic about our date tonight."

Anna makes it clear she prefers men like sexy Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe), the genetically superior male screenwriter who gets the good centuries to write about at Lecture Films.

But everything changes when Mark goes to the bank to withdraw his last $300, but inexplicably, he says he has $800 in his account. Because nobody lies, the clerk assumes the bank made the error and apologies to him. With $800.

Where most comedies would turn "Invention" into a tawdry tale of a naughty man who lies to get into women's pants (the thought occurs to Mark, but he's too ethical to follow through), Gervais and Robinson have much bigger, more profound ideas in store.

Mark's lonely neighbor Frank (Jonah Hill) constantly contemplates suicide. One night, Mark lies to him by saying he'd love to hang out with him and be friends. Frank suddenly seems optimistic. His suicidal thoughts evaporate.

Wait! Can it be? Can bearing false witness (the Ten Commandments have something to say about that) be used as a force for good?

Lying almost becomes an act of grace after a bluntly truthful doctor (Jason Bateman) at a retirement facility called "A Sad Place For Old Hopeless People" tells Mark's ill mother (Fionnula Flanagan) she won't last the night.

With tears in his eyes, Mark addresses her fear of death by telling her a major whopper about an afterlife where she will live forever in a mansion with all the people she loves.

Instantly, the news media turn Mark into a virtual messiah who, in the movie's most audacious moment, draws up a list of rules about an omniscient "man in the sky" written on tablets (actually, the tops of two Pizza Hut boxes).

This instantly conjures up Monty Python's "The Life of Brian" for its biting biblical satire and bold laughs. (Nice product placement, too.)

Robinson came up with the movie's premise after a weekend of watching old "Twilight Zone" episodes and overdosing on works by sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison.

Robinson and Gervais (last seen as the put-upon dentist in "Ghost Town") have fashioned a provocative, heady comedy about situational ethics, camouflaged as a regular romantic comedy.

"The Invention of Lying" believes in the innate goodness of people, yet, weirdly enough, sets its story in a world where religion reigns as the greatest, most reassuring fiction of all.

<p class="factboxheadblack">"The Invention of Lying"</p> <p class="News">Three and a half stars</p> <p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Edward Norton</p> <p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson</p> <p class="News"><b>Other:</b> A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 for language, with sexual and drug references. 100 minutes</p>