(2009) "Everyone tells the absolute truth" by nature in this romcom fantasy film, co-directed and -written by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, until one day Mark Bellison (Gervias), a screenwriter for Lecture Films, tells the very first lie.

But before that happens, he goes to pick up Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) at her apartment for a date, who honestly (she can't doing otherwise) tells him that she's been masturbating and not looking forward to their being together for the evening because he's unattractive and financial unfavorable; in fact, he can't help admitting he's expecting to get fired the following day. At the restaurant the waiter informs Mark that his date is "way out of your league."

Just before Mark's boss Anthony (Jeffrey Tambor), who hates confrontations, fires Mark because he's an awful writer assigned to an awful century, the unlucky 13th with its unfortunate black plague, Mark's secretary Shelley (Tina Fey) bluntly lets him know: "I loathed almost every minute I worked for you." He's a total loser from a long line of unlucky ancestors, while the world's greatest screenwriter Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) is also excessively handsome and desirable.

A Coke commercial on TV ("a bit sweet") makes no effort to manipulate or lure the audience with false claims; a Pepsi ad on the side on a bus flatly states: "When they don't have Coke."

About to be evicted from his flat for lack of rent for the landlord, Mark goes to his bank where he answers the teller's question, "Can you tell me how much is in your account?" (the computer system is temporarily down) with an inspiration. Elated by his epiphany, Mark attempts to demonstrate to his best friend Greg (Louis C.K.) and the blond-bearded bartender Jim (Philip Seymour Hoffman) he's saying "something that wasn't," but they can't grasp what he's saying.

If you could do anything in the world you wanted to, what would you do? Taking advantage of his new-found gift, he tells an alluring woman that the world is about to end, so they'd better have sex together. Next he goes to a casino with Greg to win at gambling. After sex and money Mark convinces his miserable neighbor Frank (Jonah Hill) not to commit suicide; he brightens up the lives of other people as well with little white lies.

Finally he calls Anna (who thought for all his faults he was funny) for another date: "I think I'm in your league." Returning to his former place of employment, Mark presents Anthony with a "never-before-heard event in history," thereby creating the first work of fiction set in Babylon in 1400 with the arrival of a spaceship, which becomes the best screenplay ever written by anyone.

Rich and successful, possessing a completely different world perspective from everyone else, Mark still can't convince Anna that he'd make a better husband (being fat and snub-nosed) than Brad, whose genetics would be "mutually beneficial" for their offspring.

At his mother's bedside in the old people's home, as she gasping her last breaths and saying she's frightened of passing into "an eternity of nothingness," Mark invents the afterlife: "You go to your favorite place in the whole world" where you're young again and live in a mansion surrounded by your loved ones and friends in "an eternity of joy." Word gets out to the media that Mark knows what happens after people die. "How do you know?" asks Anna.

He writes out ten truths ("Everything you need to know") that the man in the sky, who controls everything, has revealed to him alone on "tablets" of Pizza Hut boxes and reads them aloud, answering the public's questions: you'll go to a bad place if you do three bad things; the man in the sky makes up for bad stuff happening with an eternity of good stuff. Newspaper headline: "Finally a reason to be good."

But when Anna asks him whom the man in the sky expects her to choose for her mate, Mark refuses to use his leverage with the girl he most wants in his life. With prevarication, Mark also introduces the means to having good manners.

The soundtrack includes songs performed by Bob Dylan, ELO, Supertramp, and a Cat Stevens cover.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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