The trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a odd one, and could have easily been turned into a horror movie, too bad.  Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton are a couple who are not able to conceive.  They write down their hopes and dreams for the child they’ll never have, put the writing in a box, and bury the box in their backyard. They wake up to find a kid, who calls them mom and dad.  Leaves a lot of questions for sure don’t you think?

Here’s the official synopsis and trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green:

A childless couple, unable to conceive, buries all their wishes for a baby in a box in their backyard. One day, they wake up to find that a child is born, but the child is not all that it appears.

Synopsis: The Invention of Lying takes place in an alternate reality in which lying—even the concept of a lie—does not even exist. Everyone—from politicians to advertisers to the man and woman on the street—speaks the truth and nothing but the truth with no thought of the consequences.  But when a down-on-his-luck loser named Mark (Ricky Gervais) suddenly develops the ability to lie, he finds that dishonesty has its rewards. In a world where every word is assumed to be the absolute truth, Mark easily lies his way to fame and fortune.

In a world where no one lies, Ricky Gervais just did.  He does it again and again and bares the consequences.  Small white lies to put a smile on people’s faces, to give them hope, to more selfish lies in order to earn a few more dollars or a bigger house.  Sound familiar?  Yes, that is today’s world.  In this world that Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson created, there is no religion.  Not everyone wanted to give the movie a pass with that concept, so of course without really understanding what the film is saying, people hate it for that reason, see here and here.

The film has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, shocking even.  Jennifer Garner’s best role to date, she even steal the movie early on with a line that she apparently improvised.  Gervais is on top form with him uncomfortable mannerisms that make us love him so.  For the time spent with Louis C.K and Jonah Hill, it left me wanting more.  I enjoyed the cameos (bar scene, police officer).

I hate to do this, but the film has its flaws.  This is supposed to be a parallel universe where lying had not been invented until Gervais invents it, if that’s the case why does Gervais look shocked half the time when people insult him by telling the truth about him?  He didn’t just land there.  Also, why does each character need to blurt out exactly what they’re thinking?  This is not the same as having to speak the truth.  Maybe it should have been called “The Invention of not constantly talking and sharing thoughts”.

The end result is an entertaining and thought provoking movie ultimately urges the viewer to consider how important the truth is and where lies fit in to our lives.  Despite its flaws, The Invention of Lying is Gervais’ best film outing to date. It shows that he has the intelligence to go for invention and originality.  I can’t wait for Cemetery Junction (trailer here) to arrive, a less Hollywood outing; something I think made Gervais so popular in the first place.

3 Jesus Gervais' out of 4

A man discovers how to lie and uses it to become rich and famous.  I have been following this movie for over a year and from what I read in the script to people’s reviews thus far (like J.J. Abrams), it’s going to the Oscars by the sounds of it.  Gervais deserves a little more gold anyways for being so awesome.

See Gervais lie September 25th.
Vist his BLOG.

This movie is going to be awesome for many reasons.  Let’s take a look.

Gervais is blogging his experience of working on this movie, from his collaboration with co-writer and director Matt Robinson (“During the [conference] call me and Matt passed each other off-putting notes and obscene pictures to make each other laugh. I lost, and at one point had to leave the room”) to observations about picking out costumes as an actor (“Some directors/lead actors would choose their wardrobe based on style, creation of original iconography and aesthetic enhancement of the fictional world. I chose mine based on comfort, how long they take to get in and out of and on what I would want to keep when the movie is complete.”)

His blog is hilarious and more often than not he doesn’t even talk about the movie, he will go on about current events and such.  He keeps you up to date on his Audio Books and TV appearances.  Really handy one stop shop for a Gervais fan.  Look at cast. Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman(Teen Wolf Too), Jonah Hill, Rob Lowe, the great Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Christopher Guest! And Jeffrey Tambor.  This is going to be awesome.

COMING SOON: Official title, release date, and poster.