All these pseudo intellectual guys who think critical thinking is reducing the world to some basic functional factors and ignoring *everything else* and through the simple "clarity" it brings them they feel enlightened instead of delusional and reductionist. And they think everyone else must be wrong or just not tell the truth, and they are *so brave* for telling everyone...🙄
@@SirWeirdGuydon’t you know? All Redditoids are neckbeard misogynists that reference Rick and Morty all day. I won’t deny some Redditors are like this, but the majority of redditors at least in the news articles comment sections are really progressive and sometimes straight up socialists advocating for equal rights for everyone. The type of people that you should avoid like the plague on Reddit are the people from r/wallstreetbets r/conservative r/libertarian r/neoliberalism and other right wing subs but most other places hold mostly decent people even the ones who are “apolitical” can be pretty nice.
Rickster name searches himself all the time, @ him, and he will see it, and probably be bothered for literal weeks, as well as retweeting it with some lame self-deprecating joke ";D" while really intending for his platoon of followers to dogpile you
This is just the "I'm just saying what everybody's thinking" talking point right? Does our boy Ricky think people are against eugenics only because of political correctness???
@@dudeguyoverlord In a way, he's not wrong. A lot of people have certain ideas about society and human behavior that, if they followed them to their logical conclusion, would inevitably arrive at eugenics. They just balk at the actual practice because it's much more obviously misanthropic. If you think people's behavior is overwhelmingly driven by their essential qualities, e.g. "criminals are simply people who choose to commit crime; 'good people' would never choose to commit crimes no matter their circumstances", you eventually arrive at the idea of "weeding out" the "bad people".
I mean it's not weird that there would be a few people like that, but I remember it bothered me that that's who he is madly in love with and there's nothing really off about to him - because "that's just how all women really are if they were being honest", right? Also since he can lie + lacks the compulsion to explain all his motivations, he never explains why he finds her so desirable, and somehow ends up portrayed as if he's less shallow and/or eugenically minded. She wants an attractive partner bc eugenics, he wants an attractive partner bc wdym "why"? He's the male lead? Idk pissed me off
"Idiocracy" came out three years before "The Invention of Lying" and that movie was a full on argument in favor of eugenics. The 00's were an especially misanthropic decade for comedy.
If Avengers Endgame came out in the 00's I imagine it would end with the Avengers stopping Thanos from indiscriminately wiping out half of humanity so they could snap away the half the Avengers deem genetically inferior
THANK YOU! this bothered me so much-- it's such a good premise! but the movie thinks 'not lying' is the same as 'compulsively saying rude things' which is so sad and revealing
@@dvol I think the idea is that not everyone has rude thoughts that they're hiding. They might have unclear, surprised first thoughts but omitting them or thinking things through before answering isn't lying And that even people who have immediately unpleasant and clear thoughts, there's still a good chance someone would still feel bad about saying something like "Oh wow your baby is ugly" not because of societal pressures but because they could empathize with a person who probably doesn't wanna hear that about their kid, and regret it. Sure, rude people would exist and honestly a movie that showing some depictions of that isn't an issue but the very cynical and nature of the movie where everyone is awful feels very..faux-intellectual though because it's more bitter it's more "honest" And is completely disinterested in having a larger and genuinely difficult conversation about the complexities honesty and lying
Well, if she was concerned him and his genetics weren't attractive enough for her and her baby desires, and she couldn't lie, what could she tell him instead?
I've been saying similar shit for years! My angle has more been that it's insane to assume that in a truth-only world, everyone would constantly belittle and shit on each other. So much of human interaction is based on subjective appraisals, and it seems bonkers to assume that how we communicate has no bearing on how we form those appraisals. For example, iirc in the opening joke reel there's a line where a lady says something like "Your baby is so ugly! It looks like a little rat!" with a huge smile on her face. But, surely that can't be "the truth" in some objective sense - it's a reflection of how she feels about the baby. It would be just as honest for her to say 'I don't think your baby is particularly cute, but that's just me'. And like, wouldn't she get enough feedback from the people she interacts with that the crueler response is unnecessary? It isn't honest to compare a baby to a rat, it's hyperbolic and mean! The premise could've prompted a really interesting narrative about how lying corrupts - how the existence of lying is this faustian thing that lets our unfriendly attitudes fester in the dark, making us worse people in exchange for more convenient social interactions. Instead, we get "wouldn't it be lame if no one could lie? Then, how would Ricky Gervais show everyone what a clever little boy he is for seeing the ugliness in the world?" Thanks little joel, I've long felt insane about this movie
Right?! Like I remember seeing this movie as a kid and the part with commercials that have spokes people who just low key shit on the product. Find someone who likes your product?! Describe the products actual taste maybe? People genuinely love Coke it just felt so disingenuous.
Another thing is like, why couldn't they just keep their mouths shut? It's as though the movie asserts that not telling everyone every rude thought in your head is lying. Weird, bad movie.
I think the whole point of the movie is to say that God is a lie. We create "meaning" beyond our pathetic existence because we (pathetically) want good outcomes for ourselves and our loved ones. To make "the truth hurt," they make all the "truth-sayers" cruel. I guess it is a way of boasting that - I (Ricky) have the courage to face the cold hard truth. (perhaps)?
busylivingnotdying Oh, no doubt. It's just such a shitty thesis statement, though - it doesn't really answer to any of the classic philosophical arguments for the existence of god, nor those about the origin of spirituality and religion. For example: how did the inhabitants of truth-world interpret disease before germ theory became possible? What did they think about determinism before quantum mechanics? Did none of them really ever argue for a "final cause"? The world in "the invention of lying" doesn't lack deceit, it lacks imagination. And then it spends its runtime pointing out what a genius ricky is for confusing the two.
"Ricky Gervais has a husk for a soul 😆😂 Ok bye 😃" Each day I'm more and more convinced that Little Joel is an ancient wizard that just pretends to be a normal human person for fun. And I'm here for it.
The thing that always struck me about this movie was how bad Ricky was at explaining the concept of lying in the movie. "What if I said something that wasn't" is gibberish, and in the movie the concepts of "being wrong" and "doing something on accident" still exist, so why doesn't he just say "I said something wrong on purpose.' Not as biting of a critique, but I have thought about this for a decade.
Because that's kind of what the movie is about; is a thing wrong if it serves one rightly, and isn't right and wrong somewhat dependant upon perspective?
@@zer0nix But in the context of lying, "wrong" means something you do not believe to be factually correct. Your comment is some epic "Instagram wisdom" fodder. Telling someone that a dress is blue when you see it as red may "serve you rightly", but that doesn't change that you didn't see a blue dress. It's not really some philosophical quandary 😂
The thing that stands out to me is that a lot of characters unnecessarily volunteer embarrassing information like that they've just gone to the toilet or masturbated. It isn't "lying" to not volunteer irrelevant information or to be vague.
@@JimTheCurator ''Lying by omission is the deliberate act of leaving out important details so the truth is skewed or misrepresented. It's the counterpart of lying by commission, or using false direct statements.'' not saying you just went to the toilet isnt ''LEAVING OUT IMPORTANT DETAILS SO THE TRUTH IS SKEWED OR MISREPRESENTED'' , its irrelevant skippable info, use your brain
I dont think anything showcases how much Ricky Gervais needs to feel superior to everyone else than that le epic rant he did at the Golden Globes. You can’t flaunt how much better you are than all the other celebrities when you’re the one contributing to that celebrity culture by hosting this award show you find so vapid, not once, but 5 different times.
Dont forget while doing a speech that was preapproved by the academy. While all your celebrity friends laugh along with you. I still cant believe people ate that up as him owning the "Hollywood elites."
@@raze_ I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him when he says it wasnt preapproved. My main issue is that for all of his talk about celebrity egos during that monologue there was only one person that whole show that spent minutes on end touting how smarter they were than everyone else in the room.
SO, my first year of college, I got my nose pierced on Yom Kippur, but I still had 6 hours left in the fast. I decided to watch this movie to pass some of the time. About 30 minutes in, I felt a weird pain in my stomach. I ended up not being able to feel my arms and having hot flashes to the point where someone on my floor called security to drive me to the health center. The health center was about to close, so they sent me to the hospital, even though I insisted I was fine. I spent 4 hours in the ER because my stomach hurt but I wasn't actively bleeding or dying. They gave me a bunch of really invasive tests, but I realized I didn't have a at and my phone was almost dead. By this point, I hadn't eaten in 26 hours. I ended up calling my parents (who luckily were only like 30 min away bc they were visiting family) and they came to get me, but I hadn't told them about the septum piercing yet, so they were really angry. They gave me a bagel and sent me home. (Best bagel I've ever had.) I ended up having to get like $1500 more in tests, only for them to put me on hormone supplements. Then they thought it was IBS. I found out this year that it was probably just a particularly bad panic attack because I pierced my nose and hadn't eaten in 18 hours. I have still never finished the movie. Thanks for telling me what it's about so I never feel the need to rewatch it. I knew it was bad. I didn't know that it got worse. Also, 11/10 impression
I actually went to a movie theater to see the Invention of Lying and it's the most perplexing piece of cinema. Not only is Ricky's character the only person who can lie; he's the only person capable of any kind of metaphorical or abstract thought, storytelling, or metaphysical speculation. Things most children do pretty much as soon as they can speak in complete sentences
well yeah, that's the whole thesis of the movie? That creative thought is really just lying, or making things up? I think the problem is you not understanding the movie.
@@onurbschrednei4569 I can see how deception requires imagination, as an intermediate step. That doesn't make them literally the same thing. The movie just doesn't seem to care to make a distinction there. It's a world in which non-rational ideas (like axioms of religious faith, for example) can only come about through an act of deliberate deception. Religion-as-delusion is a common enough idea in Gervais's milieu but what's odd about the world of this movie is that religious people *aren't* deluded; they've simply all been deliberately (if well-meaningly) deceived by one incredibly clever boy-a role Gervais created for himself. It's an interesting thought experiment as far as it goes but real-life people are just not that rational so it's hard to relate or pull the kind of insight out of the movie that it seems eager to impart
I've never felt more betrayed by a celebrity's career than that of Ricky Gervais; from the heartfelt relatable humanity of The Office (the original UK series) to his current hateful smugness and casual bigotry.
Extras and the most recent Afterlife were so good. So I think you're just coaxed into believing the "Ricky Gervais is problematic" story the video essayists do these days.
@@purplewine7362 Afterlife looks really good and I never really watched Extras but for the Bowie scene but if he dug it I'm sure its good. Gervais's last special was right awful though, just lazy jabs at wokeness as if being anti-woke is funny in itself.
Thank you for helping me process the trauma of watching Click and the Invention of Lying and being the only person in my friend group who haaaated them.
I’m very late this, but I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen The Invention of Lying, but I have seen Click and I can’t imagine how horrified I would be if I knew someone who didn’t hate that movie.
My long big but kindof irrelevant gripe was it's a world not just without lying but without falsehood entirely, no one can even be incorrect. Like if Ricky Gevais told me he was black and had no arms and legs even if I didnt know lying was possible and I thought he sincerely believed that I'd think he needed psychological help.
There's actually a word for someone who sees themself as a master manipulator and the only person whose thoughts and feelings have any real value in a world of gullible, vapid, NPCs. Couple of words for that, in fact.
Everything Ricky Gervais has done after The Office and Extras shows that Stephen Merchant was clearly the one carrying their shows in the writing department.
I think that what bothers me the most about the movie is that it has a good premise, which is a world with no lies, and then ends up feeling like a generic romantic comedy with the "no lies" stuff as a secondary quirk. Hell, it even plays "Give a Little Bit" at the end of the film.
I disagree that it's a good premise. Learning to lie is a developmental milestone that healthy children reach at age 3-4. Many other species of animals use deceptive behavior. Deception is a basic survival mechanism for any animal that relies on its intelligence for survival. There's really no way to execute this premise other than portraying everyone as empty, idiotic shells.
@@user-ro9md9wp3j movies aren’t real they don’t have to be real and being impossible does not make them bad. This movie sucks all on its own without science invalidating its premise
I thought the movie's concept was really intriguing, but after watching it a couple times, it struck me as odd how it assumes that honesty is inherently harsh and self-interested. I don't think I can recall many moments when someone was being honestly kind to anybody else, and that definitely suggests a lot on how Ricky views humanity.
Also like, obviously people can just say nothing even if they can't lie. Otherwise they would be constantly spouting technicallu true non sequiters. Walking down the street going "there is a tree to my left" and stuff. Even if lying doesn't exist withholding any comment at all would. It's like Gervais can only conceptualize honesty in the context of "vocalizing harsh truths and telling it like it is at the cost of others' feelings".
I think what I'm always hoping for in any of your work, Joel, is a moment I get to watch you completely crack yourself up. It's a genuine delight each time it happens, and I can never see it coming.
The movie went from an interesting premise with a unlimited amount of comedic and creative potential, to a early 2010's Reddit Rage Comic of a "I'm a le nice guy stuck in the friendzone, who deserves a really hot woman despite all my personal and physical shortcomings" bitchfest.
It's definitely a Ricky Gervais power fantasy. "I'm the only guy who tells the truth, so what if I made a movie where I'm the only person who could lie?"
I noticed the same thing in his series afterlife. Like he plays basically himself and writes everyone's character to constantly tell him how cool and funny he is. It's very obvious and embarassing.
When I was 10 and first heard of this movie, I also thought the premise was fun and cool. I've never seen it to this day, but I've always in the back of my mind imagined a cute, silly movie with a heartwarming story about honesty in relationships. It rocked me to my core to learn what the movie actually is.
The movie ends up making two distinct classes of people, which is assholes and robots. Seeing people as deep down either cruel or completely hollow feels really on brand for Gervais. If you’re not viewing others with contempt, he thinks there’s something missing inside of you.
This reminds me of a book we found recently in our home library, called "What Men Don't Want You to Know" Not only did the author see women solely as sexual objects, he assumed the same of "all men." We decided to ritually burn it. I searched the exact title in a private window so that it wouldn't contaminate my search history and cookies. It is absolutely disgusting.
misogynists defending themselves with "this is just what all men think/feel/etc" when it's just them and a few other weirdos would be so funny if they weren't horrible people
One of the biggest douchebags I've ever met (a friend of a friend at the time) accused me of trying to sleep with one of my female friends because I was...talking to her at a group hangout. When I denied it and said we were just friends he said "I just don't think men and women can be friends." Like just cause you only see women as fuck toys, don't put that damage on an entire gender, pal.
My big takeaways were: 1. I do absolutely think that the movie thinks everybody IS the way the NPCs talk in the movie, but that we all lie to ourselves IRL about it. Ricky thinks all women want out of a relationship is to chase their biological clock (which is conflated with eugenics because of casual conservatism I guess). I think the biggest proof of this is in Jonah Hill's character, who must be lied to about anybody liking him to prevent his otherwise (in the movie's logic) rational suicidal tendencies. 2. I think this is trying to play largely into conservative views, especially those painted with Christian ideals of the origin and purpose of humanity. I know Ricky would insist he's smarter than being a parrot for religious conservative talking points, but the idea that the sudden blessing of choice between right and wrong to change the lives of those who do not so understand such a power, and those conditions developing a soul, purpose, and meaning in a person, might as well be straight from an evangelist sermon. Ricky is certainly not more clever than to be a parrot for these ideas. If I were to pathologize, I'd say it's because he doesn't bother to distinguish between things he feels clever about and things he has any solid grasp on. 3. The movie feeds into the conservative idealism of competition, where whomever undermines society for their own benefit is the defacto hero. They are the hero because they're so clever and everybody else was too much of a dumb, docile robot whose existence probably wasn't meaningful enough to not disrupt with our hero's self-serving bad behavior. Sure is good that him seeking to win a relationship with a woman who isn't interested is justified by her reasons for not being interested in him being defeated by the competitive edge of his invention of lying.
You are SO correct at the end of point 2. His radio shows and podcasts are basically a showcase for this. He's consistently incapable of explaining any of the things he mocks others for not understanding. He just accepts them at the surface level in order to feel superior to everyone else, at which point they've served their purpose.
Point 2. is something I think about, not specifically relating to Ricky, but this attitude many "skeptic" atheists have that they are just inherently smarter and more cleaver than everyone else, when in reality they are just as arrogant and simple minded as a lot of Christians are. Many atheist will abandon religion without putting in the work towards shaking off religious conditioning, which starts with the acknowledgement that we are not as rational as we like to believe, and that we are mostly influenced by the environment we were raised in. There is a reason why those kinds of atheists have a reputation for being unimaginably annoying.
I never saw this movie, so I had to wait until Derek to see this play out. "Derek, you are kind and smart and wonderful and brave and you smell really good, and if everyone in the world was like you Ricky...er...Derek, then the world would be a pretty magical place I reckon". Insane.
I have great success on dating apps right now because I am completely open to the other person about literally every aspect of my live from trauma to sexuality and everyone so far has said that I am the most open person that they ever known, which is honestly kinda sad. But in any case, it shows that not lying is not the same as being boring or emotionless. It's the opposite really.
The weirdest thing is that animals are perfectly capable of lying and they do it to each other all the time, so I don't know why lying is even portrayed as something intrinsically human in the first place.
as someone who’s never seen the movie my first thought would be that the message is supposed to be “ppl lie to themselves to imagine things beyond their reality” and “some types of lies are good for the human spirit” but i also know that ricky gervais wrote this movie so that reality is very unlikely
This comment is super interesting. You obviously got the movie right. That is the explicit, clearly stated message of the movie: lying, that is, dreaming and reshaping reality to make it more beautiful, is good. The invention of lying is progress for that world, things will be better after lying is invented. The movie couldn't be more explicit about this. Yet, your prejudice against Gervais is so rooted that you would doubt your own understanding and believe that you got the movie wrong rather than give him some credit. This is a bit disquieting.
@@a.f.schmied1571 dog i do not care enough about a more-than-a-decade old movie i never even bothered seeing at the time written by someone who’s creative output ive only grown to dislike more since, for it to matter if i was right or not in the film’s meaning or my doubting of it. i’m sure the movie has many positive and negative qualities but quite frankly none of them matter to me at all
in “the sandman” when people can’t lie anymore they just rip each other and themselves apart and become totally evil in some ways. but they still feel, they still want and need. i think it’s a better exploration about the idea. but it’s not just LIES, it’s DREAMS!!! lies are dreams and fantasies too. and that’s what really makes us human and soulful. i agree with your take on ricky gervais though.
I didn't like that one. There's kind of an implication that long-term goals are a form of lying. If we do not accept every intrusive thought that comes to us in the form of immediate desire, we are lying to ourselves. I don't think that makes much sense. It does kind of address this by supporting the idea of dreams, but I still don't think it makes it coherent. I think following your dreams is honesty.
@@heckoff7904the future is a form of lying. i think that’s true. any kind of long-term goal is just a reality that you’ve made up, that you’ve decided is possible for yourself. until it actually happens you’re just creating a fantasy. there’s nothing wrong with that, it doesn’t make EVERY dream unattainable. more than that, i think the episode explores people who don’t necessarily intend to do the things they wish they could do. they really are just idle daydreams, all of them. they’re meant to be kept in that space, because the actual balance of a person’s life would be thrown by getting what they want. again, this isn’t always true. but i think it’s relatable to most people, yknow. having a dream that would actually ruin your life. that you wouldn’t REALLY like if it were real. some things are better to imagine.
I'm 100% sure that in a world without lying the exact opposite would happen, you'd see an 100000% increase on every single type of person we normally pretend to find undesirable being asked out for dates. Fat people, trans people, lanky nerds and small-breasted women and so on. I'm sure lots of people truly, sincerely like the jock and runway model types, I'm just saying that just as many people like the so called unpopulars, they just don't say it.
Gervais and McFarlane in particular are a couple of the most egregious examples of main character syndrome when it comes to comedians in movies. I swear to God, my ex's favourite movie was A Million Ways to Die in the West and it was one of the worst movies I've ever had to sit through. The fucking self-insert main character, the cool girl who smokes pot love interest (she's also super hot but also acts like one of the boys, unlike the bitchy ex), the dragged out jokes, the bitch ex girlfriend who leaves him only to get her comeuppance later.
“Lies are the glue that holds society together. We lie about our mileage, we lie about the weather. We lie to spare each-other’s feelings, we lie to stay in bed. We to feel important about all books that we’ve read.” Dr. Doofenshmirtz
The slightly pained sounding little breath Little Joel makes at 2:24 is the most appropriate reaction to this movie. That sound could have been the whole video and I would have understood.
I remember when this move was making the premium channel rounds and my whole family got around to watching it. None of us really knew what to do with it, and any discussions we had about it were like poking it with a stick before leaving it on the sidewalk we found it on.
I have always thought this same thing about that movie! Everyone used to talk about how profound the movie was and I felt like it could have been much more profound if the entire movie weren't about Ricky Gervais being better than everyone.
Wild that the minute someone gave him the opportunity to make a movie he took a half-decent concept and diluted it into "religion dumb and Ricky smart". Really couldn't do any better than that. I genuinely think the notion that people have no interiority if they can't create myths / lies about themselves and the world is interesting and ripe for a comedic take. But Gervais is so deeply cynical and uncreative that he went the complete weirdo route.
Surprised you didn't mention the last where he uses the power of lies to tell a suicidal man not to kill himself. The only way to interpret that within the movie's logic is that the man objectively should kill himself and Ricky's character is stopping him just because he wants him to suffer
huh? have you never told anyone "its not so bad" when it actually is really bad to make them feel better?? How do you not get the concept of lies making someone feel better? How is that a criticism of the movie? I think you just revealed your lack of understanding human emotions more than anything else.
@@onurbschrednei4569the thing with the movie however is that it doesn’t say it as in lying is saying something you know to be false but as saying ”something that isn’t” and by that when he says ”you are not worthless” he is not just saying smt that he doesn’t believe but also something that objectively ”isn’t”
The "lie" he says isn't "it's going to be okay", though. The thing the film frames as a lie is "you shouldn't kill yourself". Prior to that he has any interactions with this man have been mildly indifferent. So the sentiment that this man shouldn't kill himself is framed as the lie, and if we were honest we wouldn't care. Which fucking sucks.
@onurbschrednei4569 the thing is within the logic of the film there are two options, and neither one fits your narrative of him saying "things aren't so bad" even though the lie is to save the man. This is because he both lies and he specifically tells the man that he shouldn't kill himself. Option one: the lie is that the man should kill himself objectively, and Gervais's character lies because while the man should kill himself objectively he for some reason Gervais's character does not want him to die. As the commenter said, if the man objectively should kill himself then not doing so is the worse outcome for him, so Gervais's character must want the worst outcome to happen to the man. This is the only actual option because as you will see the other option isn't actually possible. Option two: Gervais's character believes the man should kill himself. This option simply does not work, because if he believes the man should kill himself then he would not lie about that to stop the man from killing himself because he thinks the man should kill himself and if he thinks that then he wouldn't lie to stop it. Now as a potential third option, I suppose you could argue that he thinks it's for the best if the man kills himself but lies to keep him alive because even though he thinks it would be the best thing for the man. This doesn't have the logical contradiction of option two but it does have the same implication that Gervais's character wants the man to not experience what he believes to he the best thing for him, hence wanting him to suffer. It's not just that he wants to cheer him up or help him feel better and lies to do so, he specifically lies and says that he shouldn't kill himself, meaning that he should, either objectively or in Gervais's character's mind, which again makes no goddamn sense. It also couldn't be both, where he both objectively should and Gervais's character thinks he should, because this would just be the same logical contradiction as in option two. Now you might say that he wants the man not to kill himself because even though he thinks that objectively or subjectively it would be the best thing for the man he is simply philosophically opposed to suicide, even if continuing to be alive is worse for the man. The issue is then he wouldn't be lying as he would believe that the man actually shouldn't kill himself. Or, for the closest parallel to your argument, it is a lie because he thinks or knows objectively that the man should kill himself but he chooses to lie because he still feels that the man should survive despite it being the worse outcome. The issue is that turns Gervais's character into someone who believes no one should be allowed to die for purely personal philosophical reasons, meaning he does not respect the man's choice that he either believes is better for the man or it objectively is better, which is pretty fucked up because he is causing more suffering just because he philosophically believes that no one should ever kill themselves and thinks his philosophy is more important than the man's (justified, either in Gervais's characters mind or as an objective truth) desire to kill himself. Yes, in real life you would be right if someone tries to cheer someone ip or talk them out of suicide by trying to make things seem better, and I'm sure the commenter you're replying to knows that, but the entire criticism is based on the rules set up by the film and the conclusions we are forced to draw as a result of those rules. It's not "making someone feel better" because yes, he lies to do that but the issue is that the motivation of Gervais's character for making the neighbor feel better and not kill himself is the problem, because there is no world where he both lies about the fact the neighbor shouldn't kill himself (if you or I were to tell someone they should not kill themselves, we wouldn't be lying about that central fact, as we wouldn't tell them that if we didn't believe it and didn't wish them harm, and we have no way of knowing if said person objectively should kill thenselves) and he has good intentions. The commenter didn't misunderstand human emotions, you failed to understand what they were talking about, and it's a perfectly valid criticism.
Why are there so many weirdly eugenicist 2000s comedies? Like, maybe not a lot but this and “Idiocracy” and shit. “If I had a nickel for every weirdly eugenicist 2000s comedies, I’d have two nickels!”
I remember this movie specifically because I entered the room midway through my brother watching it at the start of a long scene talking about eugenics and I was just so confused because this was supposed to be a funny movie about dishonesty. I guess it is on point to have the movie be a shockingly honest portrayal of one man's worldview.
I guess the thing I find interesting is that this movie wants to convince you that people who don't lie couldn't possibly WANT anything. The way I see it, lying and not lying both come from wanting things. It's just that lying, in the way that Ricky Gervais is doing it at least, also comes from thinking you are /entitled/ to get things you want, even when people would say no if you stated your desire honestly. It's weird that the movie seems to see people who can tolerate not getting what they want sometimes - as not wanting anything.
I’ve found the same issue with his character in After Life - he always has to be the smartest person in the room. These days Gervais is just a parody of himself - he’d fit in really well on ‘Extras’ as a heightened version of mid-2000s Ricky Gervais
This was 100% my favourite movie from when I was like 16. I thought Ricky Gervais was a comedic genius. Then I rewatched it as an adult and... yeah, I could only read a narcissistic fantasy for him. At the end the only two people who are smart enough to figure out what his character did is him and his son, who looks exactly like him. I still appreaciate the fun plot and the first half, but I wish that anyone else had made the same movie.
I have been watching your videos for years but have not ever been felt compelled to comment until this one. I just want to say that this is probably the most concise and insightful commentary on anything you've ever put out.
I personally think that the reason a world without lies would be so vapid is that lying is kinda part of the deal. The other edge of the sword of imagination. Like, with the ability to consider the unreal, and to consider possibility, we must accept the potential of deception. We must be able to be misled and to mislead about those possibilities to have meaningful capacity to consider them. I doubt that's what the movie was trying to say, but it makes sense to me.
In some way, I sort of agree, though perhaps I don't feel that to the extent you do. I don't think it would be vapid, but as a lover of mystery stories and magic tricks I do think it can inspire or provoke thought. Of course on the other side of that it can be used as a tool for control, as people are far more inclined to fact check the statements of people they already don't agree with but not so much with the people who they do. And on the other side of THAT lying is also a useful defense mechanism. If you are approached by someone with predatory intent, they are often likely to inquire things (verbally or non-verbally) that may determine if you are suitable prey or not. For example, it may be better to give someone the impression that you are local to an area or that you have friends just round the corner, even if that's not true.
@@jakerockznoodles I didn't articulate my thoughts very well. I also should have said "could" or "might" be vapid instead of "would". I don't mean that lying is what gives us depth, but rather that much of what gives us depth also gives us the ability to lie. You could have a world without lying wherin everyone simply chooses not to, or it doesn't occur to them to try. However, I do think that a world in which people are completely incapable of deception would necessitate the loss of the faculties we use to conduct the lying. Clumsy analogy: A world without walking could be a world where everyone chooses not to walk, or doesn't know how to walk, but to have a world where nobody is able to walk at all would require the loss of more than walking itself; legs, nerve connections, proprioception, balance. You gotta give up traits which facilitate walking to achieve that. And that's what I meant with my original comment. Not vacusousness as a result of not lying, rather not being able to lie as a result of vacuousness. And good points, I agree that deception is a tool, and therefore whether it is good or bad is circumstantial.
having the camera right up in this tiny joel's face makes me feel like he's right up in my living room getting all up in my business all like "dude this movie!!! this MOVIE."
Clicked on this so fast. I was a really weird kid so from the ages of 10-14 I would always say this was my favorite movie. Unclear in retrospect why I liked it so much, I had much better vhs tapes
Also since u didn't bring up the strange little details, I must point out how WEIRD some of that stuff was. In particular, the scene where ricky gervais tells a woman the world will end if she doesn't sleep with him. They play out how that emotionally impacts her in devastating detail, as she processes her sudden panic and loss of agency and they get all the way to a second location before ricky decides that it would actually be too weird to r/pe this woman under the pretense of all humanity dying if she doesn't comply. Just,,,,, what the fuck man. Also the overly emotionally manipulative scenes with his mother remind me of Click somehow, just similar vibes I guess
Well, a lot of teenagers temporarily become solipsists and assume they're geniuses for doing it, and then they grow up a bit more. TIoL is basically made for such people, because Gervais never did grow up.
I come back to this video again and again for your amazing impression of Ricky Gervais, it just captures who he is as a person and entertainer, I’d love to hear your other impressions!
Egomaniacal weirdos who make art like this: Please, enter my mind palace and behold the wonders within! Me: Wow, thank you for laying your pathologies all out on a table, this is horrendous, please keep your distance.
That movie came out the same year as I'm On a Boat went viral on TH-cam. I had a choice between watching that movie or watching I'm On a Boat 33 times in a row and I chose the latter.
I'm glad you talked about this movie. there's always something weird when an actor stars in a romance they have written. No matter what, it feels a bit like wish fulfillment. See Garden State. The end, when his love interest says she loves him despite his ugliness, it feels like I'm looking directly into Ricky gervaisa's insecurities. But not in a moving way, more like when Fielder paid that woman to say that she loves him over and over
i just KNOW that ricky gervais loves the born sexy yesterday trope (hot woman who only just came into existence falls in love with the mediocre male main character because he's literally the only man/person she's ever met so the bar is so low and he is the most intelligent and amazing man by default)
I remember this movie being on in the background and passively absorbing it when I was a kid. This video made me realize the only part I remembered was the premise and not Ricky Gervais
me bullshitting, having never watched this movie: Ricky is the only one who can lie and yet the only one who can tell the truth, a true paradox, really makes you think
All I remember about this movie is that it had an interesting premise, and a decent first half...but then it just falls entirely off the rails in the second with the Ricky invents religion subplot, which took up WAY TOO MUCH of the run time.
I assume the thought process was, at some point in the distant past of our world, humans started lying about their real reasons for mating (which are, of course, exactly what fascists and pick up artists believed all along, how convenient), and that eventually rippled throughout society into our modern existence. But, in a world where nobody had ever lied, this, wouldn’t have happened? I guess? I mean, it’s still bad, but it’s the best I’ve got
In a real world of no lies, there would be twisted half-truths and silence. It would not be a vapid place without compassion. There would simply be more understanding and pity.
I think the emptiness is not because they can't lie, but because they can't even exaggerate. They can't express things in an extreme way and that limits their ability to feel and express. At least, that was my interpretation.
I'm not sure why it would create a situation where people could only marry each other based on their physical genetic traits, but yeah i agree, that's maybe what it's goin for, just feels extremely random to me
This is an interesting comment, because exaggeration is not the same thing as lying, right? Like, if I say, "Stop making me laugh, I'm pissing myself down my whole pants," but I'm not pissing myself down my whole pants, would we call that a "lie?" It's hyperbole, it's exaggeration, but it's not a lie. Something being a lie implies you want the other person to believe what you're saying or convince them of a falsehood, but when we exaggerate or even tell fictional stories, that's not really "lying," because the storyteller isn't necessarily trying to convince us of the literal fact of the story's existence. So, even the scenes in the movie where we see a movie theatre and they're just reading off history books, that is the film makers saying that storytelling is lying, which... I don't know, what a weird thing to say? tl;dr - Lying implies intention to deceive, so fictional storytelling and hyperbole/exaggeration don't make sense under the label "lies."
@@yourneighbourtodoro I think the film is taking place in a world where everything everyone says is always the as close to objective truth as possible until the main character invents lying. So, no room for exaggeration.
@@littlestjoel I think the genetics thing is meant to point out a truth about society in a way that makes us feel uncomfortable about it. People with more status in society tend to only want to associate and form romantic relationships with people of similar status to themselves, and for at least the last 60 years attractive looks have been very important in the status game. Especially with the rise of celebrity culture. No, not everyone is as single minded and robotic about it as Jennifer Garner's character, but many people are strongly influenced by these factors. Gervais is trying to get us to challenge that framework. (Edit: the movie also believes in the Evo Psych description that evolution has wired us to look for genetically fit individuals during mate selection, driving things like larger breasts and wider hips for women over time) If anyone does some soul searching, I think they will find that this influences them too. There are probably people that you reject because you don't find them physically attractive and society in general doesn't either. There are also probably people that you don't find attractive on dating apps, despite society in general feeling they are very attractive, because they are "out of your league".
Gervais writing a movie with the premise "what if nobody had ever lied?" and immediately assuming that therefore everyone in the entire world would just be spewing unflattering factoids and insults all of the time always is such a huge unintentional reveal. Could you even imagine tipping your hand as to how you approach life and your complete inability to envision anyone else doing otherwise? How utterly embarrassing.
Im willing to bet 20 trillion dollars that little joels content will eventually become indistinguishable from big joels content, and then he gives up on big joel
I agree with your description about the movie not keeping its own premise but I’d go further. The characters don’t just not lie, they seem to feel obligated to blurt out the truth at all times. For instance, the Coke ad, which is completely bland and doesn’t even try to be artsy, says it’s not healthy. The casino people say gambling will lose you money. The characters will just announce their emotional state for no reason whatsoever unprompted. It isn’t so much a world without lying as it is a world where almost everyone is, as you say, a robot programmed to just expose its current state to everyone and anyone
I think both things are true. Ricky is clearly a narcissist and thus has a very cynical and shallow view of humanity. Coming from a very, very dedicated listener of his earlier podcasts with Karl Pilkington and someone who has seen many of his tv and film projects
He's not just a textbook narcissist, he's an exceptionally cruel one at that. He genuinely thinks he can treat whoever he wants like total garbage, and that everything he says is automatically correct, so if he thinks someone is a twat he believes that he is correct and that person is genuinely a twat, whereas others would be aware that this was their feelings towards this person.
Fr I actually like Karl Pilkington’s thoughts and observations and he’s by far the most interesting guy on the show. But Ricky is such a cunt to him. Like never once is he just like “That’s pretty interesting Karl” it’s always like “haha your such a stupid twat haha” or some shit like that and he rarely has anything very interesting to add himself. Even when Ricky does try to be informative it’s always delivered so condescendingly. I get the sense he’s always trying way too hard to be funny but generally comes off as unlikeable and pretty annoying. Maybe that’s part of the appeal of the show somehow but Idk why Karl always puts up with it, he seems like a genuinely good person.
@@gwen9939 it's also pretty funny how he's a huge narcissist but the funniest thing he's ever done (imo) is the Karl podcast and that's thanks to Karl and Stephen Merchant. I especially like the episodes where Karl says something is gonna happen in the future and nowadays it's kinda happening but back then Ricky was like "fuck you dumbass"
@@notapplicable6985I can’t really think of any psychic moments he had but there was one episode where Karl basically thought of the plot of the black mirror episode with the bear as an idea for a movie and rick says it’s retarded even tho it wasn’t even that bad and someone else was able to turn it into something later on. In the same episode Karl says someone is “brain dead” and rick calls him a dumbass and says that isn’t real even though it’s definitely real and is a commonly known thing even at the time.
there's one genuinely good scene in this movie and it's when he's comforting his dying mother by coming up with the concept of an afterlife on the spot to reassure her she's going to heaven and she'll be young again and she can laugh and dance and play with all her old dead friends and family members. a genuinely really sweet and touching scene within the premise, immediately ruined by the other people in the room being awestruck by him and him waking up the next day to a crowd of worshippers at his door crowning him jesus and then the whole rest of the movie is about him being jesus
also the first thing The Love Interest says to ricky the moment she's introduced is that she was just upstairs masturbating. she then goes off-screen to continue getting ready for their date and returns shortly to confirm she finished masturbating
I hate any implication that The Truth is always going to be more often than not incredibly cruel and devoid of meaningful emotion. what if it's true that I wanna help people because it makes me feel good to do nice things?
I only watched that movie in the last year or so and this was my experience: 1st 10-15 minutes or so: holy shit, this is hilarious. How haven't I heard much about this movie before? The rest of the movie: oh The premise gets old *fast* and as you pointed out, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not really a world where nobody lies but one where everyone is an asshole
It's so funny that Ricky Gervais assumes we'd all be pro-eugenics if we were more fundamentally honest lmfaooooo wonder what's up with that!
reddit moment
All these pseudo intellectual guys who think critical thinking is reducing the world to some basic functional factors and ignoring *everything else* and through the simple "clarity" it brings them they feel enlightened instead of delusional and reductionist.
And they think everyone else must be wrong or just not tell the truth, and they are *so brave* for telling everyone...🙄
@@dmarsub fucking pretty much
@@luiysia Bruh why are you obsessed with reddit nobody even mentioned reddit before you this movie came out in 2009
@@SirWeirdGuydon’t you know? All Redditoids are neckbeard misogynists that reference Rick and Morty all day. I won’t deny some Redditors are like this, but the majority of redditors at least in the news articles comment sections are really progressive and sometimes straight up socialists advocating for equal rights for everyone. The type of people that you should avoid like the plague on Reddit are the people from r/wallstreetbets r/conservative r/libertarian r/neoliberalism and other right wing subs but most other places hold mostly decent people even the ones who are “apolitical” can be pretty nice.
Spoiler alert: Little Joel does an EXTREMELY offensive Ricky Gervais impression at the end of this video, please bear caution
It is extremely offensive, however that is only due to Ricky Gervais himself being extremely offensive
BEAR CAUTION???? WHERE??????
@@LuigiFuckingRocks89 oh god oh fuck
@@LuigiFuckingRocks89 bear down for midterms
@@bookshelfhoney Thats in really poor taste come on now
That ricky impression was deranged and I love it
Especially cuz like, if he saw that it would probably bother him for like, literal weeks
Rickster name searches himself all the time, @ him, and he will see it, and probably be bothered for literal weeks, as well as retweeting it with some lame self-deprecating joke ";D" while really intending for his platoon of followers to dogpile you
I wish he would see it.
@@zegh8578 another reason I want Twitter to not crash is to see Gervais get mad about this.
He's so thin skinned it rules
Didn’t think I’d see the Ace Attorney dub tuber in the comment section of a Big Joel side channel. Very pleasantly surprised though.
It's weird that they went directly from "no lies" to " openly talking about eugenics"
This is just the "I'm just saying what everybody's thinking" talking point right? Does our boy Ricky think people are against eugenics only because of political correctness???
@@dudeguyoverlord In a way, he's not wrong. A lot of people have certain ideas about society and human behavior that, if they followed them to their logical conclusion, would inevitably arrive at eugenics. They just balk at the actual practice because it's much more obviously misanthropic.
If you think people's behavior is overwhelmingly driven by their essential qualities, e.g. "criminals are simply people who choose to commit crime; 'good people' would never choose to commit crimes no matter their circumstances", you eventually arrive at the idea of "weeding out" the "bad people".
I mean it's not weird that there would be a few people like that, but I remember it bothered me that that's who he is madly in love with and there's nothing really off about to him - because "that's just how all women really are if they were being honest", right?
Also since he can lie + lacks the compulsion to explain all his motivations, he never explains why he finds her so desirable, and somehow ends up portrayed as if he's less shallow and/or eugenically minded. She wants an attractive partner bc eugenics, he wants an attractive partner bc wdym "why"? He's the male lead? Idk pissed me off
"Idiocracy" came out three years before "The Invention of Lying" and that movie was a full on argument in favor of eugenics. The 00's were an especially misanthropic decade for comedy.
If Avengers Endgame came out in the 00's I imagine it would end with the Avengers stopping Thanos from indiscriminately wiping out half of humanity so they could snap away the half the Avengers deem genetically inferior
THANK YOU! this bothered me so much-- it's such a good premise! but the movie thinks 'not lying' is the same as 'compulsively saying rude things' which is so sad and revealing
And also somehow all of the prevailing social norms are exactly the same
I think the idea was that at least some of these things would be lies of omission if they weren't said.
@@dvol I think the idea is that not everyone has rude thoughts that they're hiding.
They might have unclear, surprised first thoughts but omitting them or thinking things through before answering isn't lying
And that even people who have immediately unpleasant and clear thoughts, there's still a good chance someone would still feel bad about saying something like
"Oh wow your baby is ugly"
not because of societal pressures but because they could empathize with a person who probably doesn't wanna hear that about their kid, and regret it.
Sure, rude people would exist and honestly a movie that showing some depictions of that isn't an issue
but the very cynical and nature of the movie where everyone is awful feels very..faux-intellectual
though because it's more bitter it's more "honest"
And is completely disinterested in having a larger and genuinely difficult conversation about the complexities honesty and lying
Cause there’s no lies of omission and I guess they can’t lie to themselves about their motivations
Well, if she was concerned him and his genetics weren't attractive enough for her and her baby desires, and she couldn't lie, what could she tell him instead?
“You can read it that way, you SHOULD, but I don’t…” Little Joel is one of the boldest thinkers of our time
I've been saying similar shit for years! My angle has more been that it's insane to assume that in a truth-only world, everyone would constantly belittle and shit on each other. So much of human interaction is based on subjective appraisals, and it seems bonkers to assume that how we communicate has no bearing on how we form those appraisals.
For example, iirc in the opening joke reel there's a line where a lady says something like "Your baby is so ugly! It looks like a little rat!" with a huge smile on her face. But, surely that can't be "the truth" in some objective sense - it's a reflection of how she feels about the baby. It would be just as honest for her to say 'I don't think your baby is particularly cute, but that's just me'. And like, wouldn't she get enough feedback from the people she interacts with that the crueler response is unnecessary? It isn't honest to compare a baby to a rat, it's hyperbolic and mean!
The premise could've prompted a really interesting narrative about how lying corrupts - how the existence of lying is this faustian thing that lets our unfriendly attitudes fester in the dark, making us worse people in exchange for more convenient social interactions. Instead, we get "wouldn't it be lame if no one could lie? Then, how would Ricky Gervais show everyone what a clever little boy he is for seeing the ugliness in the world?"
Thanks little joel, I've long felt insane about this movie
Right?! Like I remember seeing this movie as a kid and the part with commercials that have spokes people who just low key shit on the product. Find someone who likes your product?! Describe the products actual taste maybe? People genuinely love Coke it just felt so disingenuous.
Another thing is like, why couldn't they just keep their mouths shut? It's as though the movie asserts that not telling everyone every rude thought in your head is lying. Weird, bad movie.
I think the whole point of the movie is to say that God is a lie. We create "meaning" beyond our pathetic existence because we (pathetically) want good outcomes for ourselves and our loved ones.
To make "the truth hurt," they make all the "truth-sayers" cruel. I guess it is a way of boasting that - I (Ricky) have the courage to face the cold hard truth. (perhaps)?
@@BrookeBaubles I think the no filter thing is to eliminate all lying by omission
busylivingnotdying Oh, no doubt. It's just such a shitty thesis statement, though - it doesn't really answer to any of the classic philosophical arguments for the existence of god, nor those about the origin of spirituality and religion.
For example: how did the inhabitants of truth-world interpret disease before germ theory became possible? What did they think about determinism before quantum mechanics? Did none of them really ever argue for a "final cause"?
The world in "the invention of lying" doesn't lack deceit, it lacks imagination. And then it spends its runtime pointing out what a genius ricky is for confusing the two.
"Ricky Gervais has a husk for a soul 😆😂 Ok bye 😃"
Each day I'm more and more convinced that Little Joel is an ancient wizard that just pretends to be a normal human person for fun. And I'm here for it.
The thing that always struck me about this movie was how bad Ricky was at explaining the concept of lying in the movie. "What if I said something that wasn't" is gibberish, and in the movie the concepts of "being wrong" and "doing something on accident" still exist, so why doesn't he just say "I said something wrong on purpose.'
Not as biting of a critique, but I have thought about this for a decade.
Because that's kind of what the movie is about; is a thing wrong if it serves one rightly, and isn't right and wrong somewhat dependant upon perspective?
@@zer0nix But in the context of lying, "wrong" means something you do not believe to be factually correct. Your comment is some epic "Instagram wisdom" fodder.
Telling someone that a dress is blue when you see it as red may "serve you rightly", but that doesn't change that you didn't see a blue dress. It's not really some philosophical quandary 😂
I'm genuinely happy for you that you had a place to share that, I know that feeling so well
The whole premise of the movie is hugely flawed and makes no sensse
@@rootfish2671 But I love the concept of the movie, its like the purge! Totally unrealistic but it's a fun idea!
The thing that stands out to me is that a lot of characters unnecessarily volunteer embarrassing information like that they've just gone to the toilet or masturbated. It isn't "lying" to not volunteer irrelevant information or to be vague.
Yeah. Lying and withholding information are two pretty different things. If they could lie they wouldn't tell people that they HADN'T masturbated
cinemasins level criticism
@@johannamegido8465 I kinda agree tbh, but this comment itself also comes across like a cinemasins "ding" lmao.
Lying by omission, maybe?
@@JimTheCurator ''Lying by omission is the deliberate act of leaving out important details so the truth is skewed or misrepresented. It's the counterpart of lying by commission, or using false direct statements.''
not saying you just went to the toilet isnt ''LEAVING OUT IMPORTANT DETAILS SO THE TRUTH IS SKEWED OR MISREPRESENTED'' , its irrelevant skippable info, use your brain
I dont think anything showcases how much Ricky Gervais needs to feel superior to everyone else than that le epic rant he did at the Golden Globes. You can’t flaunt how much better you are than all the other celebrities when you’re the one contributing to that celebrity culture by hosting this award show you find so vapid, not once, but 5 different times.
he is so delusional it's unbelievable
Dont forget while doing a speech that was preapproved by the academy. While all your celebrity friends laugh along with you. I still cant believe people ate that up as him owning the "Hollywood elites."
@@raze_ I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him when he says it wasnt preapproved. My main issue is that for all of his talk about celebrity egos during that monologue there was only one person that whole show that spent minutes on end touting how smarter they were than everyone else in the room.
Well, you said it yourself: times were different (:
SO, my first year of college, I got my nose pierced on Yom Kippur, but I still had 6 hours left in the fast. I decided to watch this movie to pass some of the time. About 30 minutes in, I felt a weird pain in my stomach. I ended up not being able to feel my arms and having hot flashes to the point where someone on my floor called security to drive me to the health center. The health center was about to close, so they sent me to the hospital, even though I insisted I was fine. I spent 4 hours in the ER because my stomach hurt but I wasn't actively bleeding or dying. They gave me a bunch of really invasive tests, but I realized I didn't have a at and my phone was almost dead. By this point, I hadn't eaten in 26 hours. I ended up calling my parents (who luckily were only like 30 min away bc they were visiting family) and they came to get me, but I hadn't told them about the septum piercing yet, so they were really angry. They gave me a bagel and sent me home. (Best bagel I've ever had.) I ended up having to get like $1500 more in tests, only for them to put me on hormone supplements. Then they thought it was IBS. I found out this year that it was probably just a particularly bad panic attack because I pierced my nose and hadn't eaten in 18 hours. I have still never finished the movie.
Thanks for telling me what it's about so I never feel the need to rewatch it. I knew it was bad. I didn't know that it got worse.
Also, 11/10 impression
Realistically all good stories about Yom Kippur should end with the hero eating a bagel
Holy shit what a story, maybe it was a psychosomatic reaction to the film.
@@sambog9t note taken. next yom kippur i will be eating a bagel as soon as the fasting is over. i shall be known across the world for my bagel eating.
Hell of a story
@@imsotiredofthiscrap2341 can confirm bagels are best break-fast food
I actually went to a movie theater to see the Invention of Lying and it's the most perplexing piece of cinema. Not only is Ricky's character the only person who can lie; he's the only person capable of any kind of metaphorical or abstract thought, storytelling, or metaphysical speculation. Things most children do pretty much as soon as they can speak in complete sentences
well yeah, that's the whole thesis of the movie? That creative thought is really just lying, or making things up? I think the problem is you not understanding the movie.
@@onurbschrednei4569 I can see how deception requires imagination, as an intermediate step. That doesn't make them literally the same thing. The movie just doesn't seem to care to make a distinction there. It's a world in which non-rational ideas (like axioms of religious faith, for example) can only come about through an act of deliberate deception. Religion-as-delusion is a common enough idea in Gervais's milieu but what's odd about the world of this movie is that religious people *aren't* deluded; they've simply all been deliberately (if well-meaningly) deceived by one incredibly clever boy-a role Gervais created for himself. It's an interesting thought experiment as far as it goes but real-life people are just not that rational so it's hard to relate or pull the kind of insight out of the movie that it seems eager to impart
It's a shame this isn't on Twitter cause Ricky Gervais would see it there
Ricky would block joel
What's Twitter?
I've never felt more betrayed by a celebrity's career than that of Ricky Gervais; from the heartfelt relatable humanity of The Office (the original UK series) to his current hateful smugness and casual bigotry.
Yeah it’s really dissappointing
Dude thinks he "knows the truth" when he shat on all those celebs at that awards show.
Extras and the most recent Afterlife were so good. So I think you're just coaxed into believing the "Ricky Gervais is problematic" story the video essayists do these days.
@@purplewine7362 na
@@purplewine7362 Afterlife looks really good and I never really watched Extras but for the Bowie scene but if he dug it I'm sure its good. Gervais's last special was right awful though, just lazy jabs at wokeness as if being anti-woke is funny in itself.
Thank you for helping me process the trauma of watching Click and the Invention of Lying and being the only person in my friend group who haaaated them.
I’m very late this, but I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen The Invention of Lying, but I have seen Click and I can’t imagine how horrified I would be if I knew someone who didn’t hate that movie.
real
4:43 I began screaming because I thought Ricky Gervais himself was in my home and I was at risk of having atheism explained to me
Oh no, he's about to tell you that religious people are also atheists because they don't believe in every single deity that's ever been conceived!
Ty for the laugh 😂
I was giggling at your comment, then saw you Battler pfp and audibly gasped
Tiny Joel would never lie, would he
Tiny Joel is the embodiment of lies, for he is in fact quite big.
@@cuzned1375but this one is little, you lie?
@@goobertron9099 It’s all an act. It’s time we faced facts: we’ve been duped.
Tiny Joel would, maybe, but would Pint-Sized Joel?
Hold me closer, Tiny Joel
My long big but kindof irrelevant gripe was it's a world not just without lying but without falsehood entirely, no one can even be incorrect. Like if Ricky Gevais told me he was black and had no arms and legs even if I didnt know lying was possible and I thought he sincerely believed that I'd think he needed psychological help.
If Ricky Gervais said that, he'd immediately clarify it was satire on trans people.
The whole premise is dumb and makes no sense
There's actually a word for someone who sees themself as a master manipulator and the only person whose thoughts and feelings have any real value in a world of gullible, vapid, NPCs. Couple of words for that, in fact.
And they are?
@@jeniferjoseph9200 'Ricky Gervais', I think.
"red pilled"
@@jeniferjoseph9200 malignant narcissist
Asshole is a good one
i really like the part at 5:17 where he turns into an owl. a bold creative decision that i think really paid off
Everything Ricky Gervais has done after The Office and Extras shows that Stephen Merchant was clearly the one carrying their shows in the writing department.
From my experience, the people who think that humans are innately superficial and shitty are usually the most superficial and shitty people I know.
I think that what bothers me the most about the movie is that it has a good premise, which is a world with no lies, and then ends up feeling like a generic romantic comedy with the "no lies" stuff as a secondary quirk.
Hell, it even plays "Give a Little Bit" at the end of the film.
I disagree that it's a good premise. Learning to lie is a developmental milestone that healthy children reach at age 3-4. Many other species of animals use deceptive behavior. Deception is a basic survival mechanism for any animal that relies on its intelligence for survival. There's really no way to execute this premise other than portraying everyone as empty, idiotic shells.
@@user-ro9md9wp3j wow, we've found a real neuroscientist here, tell us why movies are wrong mr. B
@@user-ro9md9wp3j movies aren’t real they don’t have to be real and being impossible does not make them bad. This movie sucks all on its own without science invalidating its premise
It's like a very shitty inversion of Liar Liar
I thought the movie's concept was really intriguing, but after watching it a couple times, it struck me as odd how it assumes that honesty is inherently harsh and self-interested. I don't think I can recall many moments when someone was being honestly kind to anybody else, and that definitely suggests a lot on how Ricky views humanity.
Also like, obviously people can just say nothing even if they can't lie. Otherwise they would be constantly spouting technicallu true non sequiters. Walking down the street going "there is a tree to my left" and stuff. Even if lying doesn't exist withholding any comment at all would. It's like Gervais can only conceptualize honesty in the context of "vocalizing harsh truths and telling it like it is at the cost of others' feelings".
You nailed him on the impression
We all nailed him to the cross.
I would not nail Ricky
Crucified Ricky - “erh, no. Sounds rubbish. Son of god? More like son of logs, innit? Cause ye nailed me on some logs-“
I think what I'm always hoping for in any of your work, Joel, is a moment I get to watch you completely crack yourself up. It's a genuine delight each time it happens, and I can never see it coming.
The movie went from an interesting premise with a unlimited amount of comedic and creative potential, to a early 2010's Reddit Rage Comic of a "I'm a le nice guy stuck in the friendzone, who deserves a really hot woman despite all my personal and physical shortcomings" bitchfest.
It's definitely a Ricky Gervais power fantasy. "I'm the only guy who tells the truth, so what if I made a movie where I'm the only person who could lie?"
I noticed the same thing in his series afterlife. Like he plays basically himself and writes everyone's character to constantly tell him how cool and funny he is. It's very obvious and embarassing.
When I was 10 and first heard of this movie, I also thought the premise was fun and cool. I've never seen it to this day, but I've always in the back of my mind imagined a cute, silly movie with a heartwarming story about honesty in relationships.
It rocked me to my core to learn what the movie actually is.
The movie ends up making two distinct classes of people, which is assholes and robots. Seeing people as deep down either cruel or completely hollow feels really on brand for Gervais. If you’re not viewing others with contempt, he thinks there’s something missing inside of you.
This reminds me of a book we found recently in our home library, called "What Men Don't Want You to Know"
Not only did the author see women solely as sexual objects, he assumed the same of "all men."
We decided to ritually burn it.
I searched the exact title in a private window so that it wouldn't contaminate my search history and cookies. It is absolutely disgusting.
misogynists defending themselves with "this is just what all men think/feel/etc" when it's just them and a few other weirdos would be so funny if they weren't horrible people
One of the biggest douchebags I've ever met (a friend of a friend at the time) accused me of trying to sleep with one of my female friends because I was...talking to her at a group hangout. When I denied it and said we were just friends he said "I just don't think men and women can be friends." Like just cause you only see women as fuck toys, don't put that damage on an entire gender, pal.
My big takeaways were:
1. I do absolutely think that the movie thinks everybody IS the way the NPCs talk in the movie, but that we all lie to ourselves IRL about it. Ricky thinks all women want out of a relationship is to chase their biological clock (which is conflated with eugenics because of casual conservatism I guess). I think the biggest proof of this is in Jonah Hill's character, who must be lied to about anybody liking him to prevent his otherwise (in the movie's logic) rational suicidal tendencies.
2. I think this is trying to play largely into conservative views, especially those painted with Christian ideals of the origin and purpose of humanity. I know Ricky would insist he's smarter than being a parrot for religious conservative talking points, but the idea that the sudden blessing of choice between right and wrong to change the lives of those who do not so understand such a power, and those conditions developing a soul, purpose, and meaning in a person, might as well be straight from an evangelist sermon. Ricky is certainly not more clever than to be a parrot for these ideas. If I were to pathologize, I'd say it's because he doesn't bother to distinguish between things he feels clever about and things he has any solid grasp on.
3. The movie feeds into the conservative idealism of competition, where whomever undermines society for their own benefit is the defacto hero. They are the hero because they're so clever and everybody else was too much of a dumb, docile robot whose existence probably wasn't meaningful enough to not disrupt with our hero's self-serving bad behavior. Sure is good that him seeking to win a relationship with a woman who isn't interested is justified by her reasons for not being interested in him being defeated by the competitive edge of his invention of lying.
You are SO correct at the end of point 2. His radio shows and podcasts are basically a showcase for this. He's consistently incapable of explaining any of the things he mocks others for not understanding. He just accepts them at the surface level in order to feel superior to everyone else, at which point they've served their purpose.
Point 2. is something I think about, not specifically relating to Ricky, but this attitude many "skeptic" atheists have that they are just inherently smarter and more cleaver than everyone else, when in reality they are just as arrogant and simple minded as a lot of Christians are.
Many atheist will abandon religion without putting in the work towards shaking off religious conditioning, which starts with the acknowledgement that we are not as rational as we like to believe, and that we are mostly influenced by the environment we were raised in.
There is a reason why those kinds of atheists have a reputation for being unimaginably annoying.
Biggest retcon operation since the New Testament.
I rented The Invention of Lying on my Xbox 360 back when it came out. As far as Microsoft is concerned it may be the only movie I've ever seen
Holy shit, I've never heard someone do Gervais so well. Had me looking around to make sure he wasn't in the room with me lmao
I never saw this movie, so I had to wait until Derek to see this play out. "Derek, you are kind and smart and wonderful and brave and you smell really good, and if everyone in the world was like you Ricky...er...Derek, then the world would be a pretty magical place I reckon". Insane.
I have great success on dating apps right now because I am completely open to the other person about literally every aspect of my live from trauma to sexuality and everyone so far has said that I am the most open person that they ever known, which is honestly kinda sad. But in any case, it shows that not lying is not the same as being boring or emotionless. It's the opposite really.
The weirdest thing is that animals are perfectly capable of lying and they do it to each other all the time, so I don't know why lying is even portrayed as something intrinsically human in the first place.
I get trolled by my dogs sometimes so I can confirm this
bc Gervais romanticizes the likes of Locke, Hobbes, Descartes, etc. who have an anthropocentric and narrow view of the world
yeah literally just get a cat and then tell me animals cant lie 😭
that's not lying, that's tricking, simulating if you like. Lying requires verbalization.
as someone who’s never seen the movie my first thought would be that the message is supposed to be “ppl lie to themselves to imagine things beyond their reality” and “some types of lies are good for the human spirit”
but i also know that ricky gervais wrote this movie so that reality is very unlikely
This comment is super interesting.
You obviously got the movie right. That is the explicit, clearly stated message of the movie: lying, that is, dreaming and reshaping reality to make it more beautiful, is good. The invention of lying is progress for that world, things will be better after lying is invented. The movie couldn't be more explicit about this.
Yet, your prejudice against Gervais is so rooted that you would doubt your own understanding and believe that you got the movie wrong rather than give him some credit.
This is a bit disquieting.
@@a.f.schmied1571 dog i do not care enough about a more-than-a-decade old movie i never even bothered seeing at the time written by someone who’s creative output ive only grown to dislike more since, for it to matter if i was right or not in the film’s meaning or my doubting of it. i’m sure the movie has many positive and negative qualities but quite frankly none of them matter to me at all
@@peach_total it mattered enough to watch this video and comment it and then reply to my comment, at least.
in “the sandman” when people can’t lie anymore they just rip each other and themselves apart and become totally evil in some ways. but they still feel, they still want and need.
i think it’s a better exploration about the idea. but it’s not just LIES, it’s DREAMS!!! lies are dreams and fantasies too. and that’s what really makes us human and soulful.
i agree with your take on ricky gervais though.
That whole episode was so good.
I didn't like that one. There's kind of an implication that long-term goals are a form of lying. If we do not accept every intrusive thought that comes to us in the form of immediate desire, we are lying to ourselves. I don't think that makes much sense.
It does kind of address this by supporting the idea of dreams, but I still don't think it makes it coherent. I think following your dreams is honesty.
@@heckoff7904the future is a form of lying. i think that’s true. any kind of long-term goal is just a reality that you’ve made up, that you’ve decided is possible for yourself. until it actually happens you’re just creating a fantasy. there’s nothing wrong with that, it doesn’t make EVERY dream unattainable.
more than that, i think the episode explores people who don’t necessarily intend to do the things they wish they could do. they really are just idle daydreams, all of them. they’re meant to be kept in that space, because the actual balance of a person’s life would be thrown by getting what they want. again, this isn’t always true. but i think it’s relatable to most people, yknow. having a dream that would actually ruin your life. that you wouldn’t REALLY like if it were real. some things are better to imagine.
THANKYOU
I'm 100% sure that in a world without lying the exact opposite would happen, you'd see an 100000% increase on every single type of person we normally pretend to find undesirable being asked out for dates. Fat people, trans people, lanky nerds and small-breasted women and so on.
I'm sure lots of people truly, sincerely like the jock and runway model types, I'm just saying that just as many people like the so called unpopulars, they just don't say it.
Delusional
@gtothereal why did you comment but not say anything
I really wanted to see that movie as a dorky edgy 4chan atheist in Jr high. Never did and forgot it existed until this moment
yeah this looks right up 14-15 year old me’s wheelhouse, watching and going “heheh, this is just like me.”
Ricky Gervais is what happens when you never grow out of that phase
A terrifying thought, really
Gervais and McFarlane in particular are a couple of the most egregious examples of main character syndrome when it comes to comedians in movies.
I swear to God, my ex's favourite movie was A Million Ways to Die in the West and it was one of the worst movies I've ever had to sit through. The fucking self-insert main character, the cool girl who smokes pot love interest (she's also super hot but also acts like one of the boys, unlike the bitchy ex), the dragged out jokes, the bitch ex girlfriend who leaves him only to get her comeuppance later.
I honestly find it pretty pathetic when someone feels themselves as superior over their movie taste.
The first reply to this sucks, your ex's taste in movies is bad
@@purplewine7362 - someone with bad movie taste
@@raccoonsandys3038 imagine the only thing you got going for you is thinking you're smarter for not liking some films
@@patrickrowan6001 lmfao too chicken to even directly reply to me
“Lies are the glue that holds society together.
We lie about our mileage, we lie about the weather.
We lie to spare each-other’s feelings, we lie to stay in bed.
We to feel important about all books that we’ve read.”
Dr. Doofenshmirtz
The slightly pained sounding little breath Little Joel makes at 2:24 is the most appropriate reaction to this movie. That sound could have been the whole video and I would have understood.
I remember when this move was making the premium channel rounds and my whole family got around to watching it. None of us really knew what to do with it, and any discussions we had about it were like poking it with a stick before leaving it on the sidewalk we found it on.
I have always thought this same thing about that movie! Everyone used to talk about how profound the movie was and I felt like it could have been much more profound if the entire movie weren't about Ricky Gervais being better than everyone.
Wild that the minute someone gave him the opportunity to make a movie he took a half-decent concept and diluted it into "religion dumb and Ricky smart". Really couldn't do any better than that. I genuinely think the notion that people have no interiority if they can't create myths / lies about themselves and the world is interesting and ripe for a comedic take. But Gervais is so deeply cynical and uncreative that he went the complete weirdo route.
Thank you for putting into words why Ricky is so repulsive
Surprised you didn't mention the last where he uses the power of lies to tell a suicidal man not to kill himself. The only way to interpret that within the movie's logic is that the man objectively should kill himself and Ricky's character is stopping him just because he wants him to suffer
huh? have you never told anyone "its not so bad" when it actually is really bad to make them feel better?? How do you not get the concept of lies making someone feel better? How is that a criticism of the movie? I think you just revealed your lack of understanding human emotions more than anything else.
@@onurbschrednei4569 I think you're projecting here, cause your comment shows a shocking lack of emotional intelligence.
@@onurbschrednei4569the thing with the movie however is that it doesn’t say it as in lying is saying something you know to be false but as saying ”something that isn’t” and by that when he says ”you are not worthless” he is not just saying smt that he doesn’t believe but also something that objectively ”isn’t”
The "lie" he says isn't "it's going to be okay", though. The thing the film frames as a lie is "you shouldn't kill yourself". Prior to that he has any interactions with this man have been mildly indifferent.
So the sentiment that this man shouldn't kill himself is framed as the lie, and if we were honest we wouldn't care. Which fucking sucks.
@onurbschrednei4569 the thing is within the logic of the film there are two options, and neither one fits your narrative of him saying "things aren't so bad" even though the lie is to save the man. This is because he both lies and he specifically tells the man that he shouldn't kill himself.
Option one: the lie is that the man should kill himself objectively, and Gervais's character lies because while the man should kill himself objectively he for some reason Gervais's character does not want him to die. As the commenter said, if the man objectively should kill himself then not doing so is the worse outcome for him, so Gervais's character must want the worst outcome to happen to the man. This is the only actual option because as you will see the other option isn't actually possible.
Option two: Gervais's character believes the man should kill himself. This option simply does not work, because if he believes the man should kill himself then he would not lie about that to stop the man from killing himself because he thinks the man should kill himself and if he thinks that then he wouldn't lie to stop it.
Now as a potential third option, I suppose you could argue that he thinks it's for the best if the man kills himself but lies to keep him alive because even though he thinks it would be the best thing for the man. This doesn't have the logical contradiction of option two but it does have the same implication that Gervais's character wants the man to not experience what he believes to he the best thing for him, hence wanting him to suffer.
It's not just that he wants to cheer him up or help him feel better and lies to do so, he specifically lies and says that he shouldn't kill himself, meaning that he should, either objectively or in Gervais's character's mind, which again makes no goddamn sense. It also couldn't be both, where he both objectively should and Gervais's character thinks he should, because this would just be the same logical contradiction as in option two.
Now you might say that he wants the man not to kill himself because even though he thinks that objectively or subjectively it would be the best thing for the man he is simply philosophically opposed to suicide, even if continuing to be alive is worse for the man. The issue is then he wouldn't be lying as he would believe that the man actually shouldn't kill himself.
Or, for the closest parallel to your argument, it is a lie because he thinks or knows objectively that the man should kill himself but he chooses to lie because he still feels that the man should survive despite it being the worse outcome. The issue is that turns Gervais's character into someone who believes no one should be allowed to die for purely personal philosophical reasons, meaning he does not respect the man's choice that he either believes is better for the man or it objectively is better, which is pretty fucked up because he is causing more suffering just because he philosophically believes that no one should ever kill themselves and thinks his philosophy is more important than the man's (justified, either in Gervais's characters mind or as an objective truth) desire to kill himself.
Yes, in real life you would be right if someone tries to cheer someone ip or talk them out of suicide by trying to make things seem better, and I'm sure the commenter you're replying to knows that, but the entire criticism is based on the rules set up by the film and the conclusions we are forced to draw as a result of those rules. It's not "making someone feel better" because yes, he lies to do that but the issue is that the motivation of Gervais's character for making the neighbor feel better and not kill himself is the problem, because there is no world where he both lies about the fact the neighbor shouldn't kill himself (if you or I were to tell someone they should not kill themselves, we wouldn't be lying about that central fact, as we wouldn't tell them that if we didn't believe it and didn't wish them harm, and we have no way of knowing if said person objectively should kill thenselves) and he has good intentions.
The commenter didn't misunderstand human emotions, you failed to understand what they were talking about, and it's a perfectly valid criticism.
Why are there so many weirdly eugenicist 2000s comedies? Like, maybe not a lot but this and “Idiocracy” and shit.
“If I had a nickel for every weirdly eugenicist 2000s comedies, I’d have two nickels!”
I watched this movie on a plane eleven years ago and I’ve never seen anyone talk about it. Sometimes I think I imagined it
little joel is really giving "hoowee jawly gyud shyow"
I remember this movie specifically because I entered the room midway through my brother watching it at the start of a long scene talking about eugenics and I was just so confused because this was supposed to be a funny movie about dishonesty. I guess it is on point to have the movie be a shockingly honest portrayal of one man's worldview.
I guess the thing I find interesting is that this movie wants to convince you that people who don't lie couldn't possibly WANT anything. The way I see it, lying and not lying both come from wanting things. It's just that lying, in the way that Ricky Gervais is doing it at least, also comes from thinking you are /entitled/ to get things you want, even when people would say no if you stated your desire honestly. It's weird that the movie seems to see people who can tolerate not getting what they want sometimes - as not wanting anything.
I’ve found the same issue with his character in After Life - he always has to be the smartest person in the room.
These days Gervais is just a parody of himself - he’d fit in really well on ‘Extras’ as a heightened version of mid-2000s Ricky Gervais
You can't stop laughing at yourself during your Ricky Gervais impersonation. Very method
This was 100% my favourite movie from when I was like 16. I thought Ricky Gervais was a comedic genius. Then I rewatched it as an adult and... yeah, I could only read a narcissistic fantasy for him. At the end the only two people who are smart enough to figure out what his character did is him and his son, who looks exactly like him. I still appreaciate the fun plot and the first half, but I wish that anyone else had made the same movie.
I have been watching your videos for years but have not ever been felt compelled to comment until this one. I just want to say that this is probably the most concise and insightful commentary on anything you've ever put out.
I personally think that the reason a world without lies would be so vapid is that lying is kinda part of the deal. The other edge of the sword of imagination. Like, with the ability to consider the unreal, and to consider possibility, we must accept the potential of deception. We must be able to be misled and to mislead about those possibilities to have meaningful capacity to consider them. I doubt that's what the movie was trying to say, but it makes sense to me.
In some way, I sort of agree, though perhaps I don't feel that to the extent you do. I don't think it would be vapid, but as a lover of mystery stories and magic tricks I do think it can inspire or provoke thought.
Of course on the other side of that it can be used as a tool for control, as people are far more inclined to fact check the statements of people they already don't agree with but not so much with the people who they do.
And on the other side of THAT lying is also a useful defense mechanism. If you are approached by someone with predatory intent, they are often likely to inquire things (verbally or non-verbally) that may determine if you are suitable prey or not. For example, it may be better to give someone the impression that you are local to an area or that you have friends just round the corner, even if that's not true.
@@jakerockznoodles I didn't articulate my thoughts very well. I also should have said "could" or "might" be vapid instead of "would". I don't mean that lying is what gives us depth, but rather that much of what gives us depth also gives us the ability to lie. You could have a world without lying wherin everyone simply chooses not to, or it doesn't occur to them to try. However, I do think that a world in which people are completely incapable of deception would necessitate the loss of the faculties we use to conduct the lying.
Clumsy analogy: A world without walking could be a world where everyone chooses not to walk, or doesn't know how to walk, but to have a world where nobody is able to walk at all would require the loss of more than walking itself; legs, nerve connections, proprioception, balance. You gotta give up traits which facilitate walking to achieve that.
And that's what I meant with my original comment. Not vacusousness as a result of not lying, rather not being able to lie as a result of vacuousness.
And good points, I agree that deception is a tool, and therefore whether it is good or bad is circumstantial.
having the camera right up in this tiny joel's face makes me feel like he's right up in my living room getting all up in my business all like "dude this movie!!! this MOVIE."
A world without lying is apparently a world with eugenics
Okay but this is coming from the mouth of the infinite condescending smile peanut gallery
Clicked on this so fast. I was a really weird kid so from the ages of 10-14 I would always say this was my favorite movie. Unclear in retrospect why I liked it so much, I had much better vhs tapes
Also since u didn't bring up the strange little details, I must point out how WEIRD some of that stuff was. In particular, the scene where ricky gervais tells a woman the world will end if she doesn't sleep with him. They play out how that emotionally impacts her in devastating detail, as she processes her sudden panic and loss of agency and they get all the way to a second location before ricky decides that it would actually be too weird to r/pe this woman under the pretense of all humanity dying if she doesn't comply. Just,,,,, what the fuck man.
Also the overly emotionally manipulative scenes with his mother remind me of Click somehow, just similar vibes I guess
Oh yeah, most 14 years old had at least one special VHS tape
Well, a lot of teenagers temporarily become solipsists and assume they're geniuses for doing it, and then they grow up a bit more. TIoL is basically made for such people, because Gervais never did grow up.
I come back to this video again and again for your amazing impression of Ricky Gervais, it just captures who he is as a person and entertainer, I’d love to hear your other impressions!
its weird tho because the movie adheres to the premise that ricky gervais is likeable, which is a lie
Egomaniacal weirdos who make art like this: Please, enter my mind palace and behold the wonders within!
Me: Wow, thank you for laying your pathologies all out on a table, this is horrendous, please keep your distance.
I hope Ricky sees this
That movie came out the same year as I'm On a Boat went viral on TH-cam. I had a choice between watching that movie or watching I'm On a Boat 33 times in a row and I chose the latter.
I'm glad you talked about this movie. there's always something weird when an actor stars in a romance they have written. No matter what, it feels a bit like wish fulfillment. See Garden State. The end, when his love interest says she loves him despite his ugliness, it feels like I'm looking directly into Ricky gervaisa's insecurities. But not in a moving way, more like when Fielder paid that woman to say that she loves him over and over
i just KNOW that ricky gervais loves the born sexy yesterday trope (hot woman who only just came into existence falls in love with the mediocre male main character because he's literally the only man/person she's ever met so the bar is so low and he is the most intelligent and amazing man by default)
I remember this movie being on in the background and passively absorbing it when I was a kid. This video made me realize the only part I remembered was the premise and not Ricky Gervais
This movie was shot in my home town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Sad
You losing it at the end fuckin got me
me bullshitting, having never watched this movie: Ricky is the only one who can lie and yet the only one who can tell the truth, a true paradox, really makes you think
I like big Joel, itty bitty Joel. Mississippi Joel, inner city Joel
OMG that impression had me in stitches. It came out of nowhere!
All I remember about this movie is that it had an interesting premise, and a decent first half...but then it just falls entirely off the rails in the second with the Ricky invents religion subplot, which took up WAY TOO MUCH of the run time.
Only just came to this video. I love it. You have nailed it.
Your Gervais impression is a spot on Russell Brandon impression
The real question is, did he do the whistle!!??😂😂😂
I assume the thought process was, at some point in the distant past of our world, humans started lying about their real reasons for mating (which are, of course, exactly what fascists and pick up artists believed all along, how convenient), and that eventually rippled throughout society into our modern existence. But, in a world where nobody had ever lied, this, wouldn’t have happened? I guess?
I mean, it’s still bad, but it’s the best I’ve got
In a real world of no lies, there would be twisted half-truths and silence. It would not be a vapid place without compassion. There would simply be more understanding and pity.
The beard grows
That little impression at the end is what I think the child of Ricky Gervais and Russel Brand would sound like:
Horrifying.
that ricky gervais impression was uncanny
THANK YOU!! I remember seeing this years ago at the dawn of quality bootlegs on the interwebs. I had the same reaction to Jen Gardner's character!
I think the emptiness is not because they can't lie, but because they can't even exaggerate. They can't express things in an extreme way and that limits their ability to feel and express. At least, that was my interpretation.
I'm not sure why it would create a situation where people could only marry each other based on their physical genetic traits, but yeah i agree, that's maybe what it's goin for, just feels extremely random to me
@@littlestjoel oh yeah, I have no idea why it'd cause that, but I could see why a writer would view it as limiting human expression.
This is an interesting comment, because exaggeration is not the same thing as lying, right? Like, if I say, "Stop making me laugh, I'm pissing myself down my whole pants," but I'm not pissing myself down my whole pants, would we call that a "lie?" It's hyperbole, it's exaggeration, but it's not a lie. Something being a lie implies you want the other person to believe what you're saying or convince them of a falsehood, but when we exaggerate or even tell fictional stories, that's not really "lying," because the storyteller isn't necessarily trying to convince us of the literal fact of the story's existence. So, even the scenes in the movie where we see a movie theatre and they're just reading off history books, that is the film makers saying that storytelling is lying, which... I don't know, what a weird thing to say?
tl;dr - Lying implies intention to deceive, so fictional storytelling and hyperbole/exaggeration don't make sense under the label "lies."
@@yourneighbourtodoro I think the film is taking place in a world where everything everyone says is always the as close to objective truth as possible until the main character invents lying. So, no room for exaggeration.
@@littlestjoel I think the genetics thing is meant to point out a truth about society in a way that makes us feel uncomfortable about it. People with more status in society tend to only want to associate and form romantic relationships with people of similar status to themselves, and for at least the last 60 years attractive looks have been very important in the status game. Especially with the rise of celebrity culture. No, not everyone is as single minded and robotic about it as Jennifer Garner's character, but many people are strongly influenced by these factors. Gervais is trying to get us to challenge that framework.
(Edit: the movie also believes in the Evo Psych description that evolution has wired us to look for genetically fit individuals during mate selection, driving things like larger breasts and wider hips for women over time)
If anyone does some soul searching, I think they will find that this influences them too. There are probably people that you reject because you don't find them physically attractive and society in general doesn't either. There are also probably people that you don't find attractive on dating apps, despite society in general feeling they are very attractive, because they are "out of your league".
5:17
Joel has been working on his Owl impression. Good work!
Your Ricky impersonation is worryingly well done.
Gervais writing a movie with the premise "what if nobody had ever lied?" and immediately assuming that therefore everyone in the entire world would just be spewing unflattering factoids and insults all of the time always is such a huge unintentional reveal. Could you even imagine tipping your hand as to how you approach life and your complete inability to envision anyone else doing otherwise? How utterly embarrassing.
Im willing to bet 20 trillion dollars that little joels content will eventually become indistinguishable from big joels content, and then he gives up on big joel
Lmao called it
I agree with your description about the movie not keeping its own premise but I’d go further. The characters don’t just not lie, they seem to feel obligated to blurt out the truth at all times. For instance, the Coke ad, which is completely bland and doesn’t even try to be artsy, says it’s not healthy. The casino people say gambling will lose you money. The characters will just announce their emotional state for no reason whatsoever unprompted.
It isn’t so much a world without lying as it is a world where almost everyone is, as you say, a robot programmed to just expose its current state to everyone and anyone
I think both things are true. Ricky is clearly a narcissist and thus has a very cynical and shallow view of humanity. Coming from a very, very dedicated listener of his earlier podcasts with Karl Pilkington and someone who has seen many of his tv and film projects
He's not just a textbook narcissist, he's an exceptionally cruel one at that. He genuinely thinks he can treat whoever he wants like total garbage, and that everything he says is automatically correct, so if he thinks someone is a twat he believes that he is correct and that person is genuinely a twat, whereas others would be aware that this was their feelings towards this person.
Fr I actually like Karl Pilkington’s thoughts and observations and he’s by far the most interesting guy on the show. But Ricky is such a cunt to him. Like never once is he just like “That’s pretty interesting Karl” it’s always like “haha your such a stupid twat haha” or some shit like that and he rarely has anything very interesting to add himself. Even when Ricky does try to be informative it’s always delivered so condescendingly. I get the sense he’s always trying way too hard to be funny but generally comes off as unlikeable and pretty annoying. Maybe that’s part of the appeal of the show somehow but Idk why Karl always puts up with it, he seems like a genuinely good person.
@@gwen9939 it's also pretty funny how he's a huge narcissist but the funniest thing he's ever done (imo) is the Karl podcast and that's thanks to Karl and Stephen Merchant. I especially like the episodes where Karl says something is gonna happen in the future and nowadays it's kinda happening but back then Ricky was like "fuck you dumbass"
@@roundabout468 what was the thing?
@@notapplicable6985I can’t really think of any psychic moments he had but there was one episode where Karl basically thought of the plot of the black mirror episode with the bear as an idea for a movie and rick says it’s retarded even tho it wasn’t even that bad and someone else was able to turn it into something later on. In the same episode Karl says someone is “brain dead” and rick calls him a dumbass and says that isn’t real even though it’s definitely real and is a commonly known thing even at the time.
there's one genuinely good scene in this movie and it's when he's comforting his dying mother by coming up with the concept of an afterlife on the spot to reassure her she's going to heaven and she'll be young again and she can laugh and dance and play with all her old dead friends and family members. a genuinely really sweet and touching scene within the premise, immediately ruined by the other people in the room being awestruck by him and him waking up the next day to a crowd of worshippers at his door crowning him jesus and then the whole rest of the movie is about him being jesus
also the first thing The Love Interest says to ricky the moment she's introduced is that she was just upstairs masturbating. she then goes off-screen to continue getting ready for their date and returns shortly to confirm she finished masturbating
ricky gervais is essentially the jesus of movement atheists
I hate any implication that The Truth is always going to be more often than not incredibly cruel and devoid of meaningful emotion. what if it's true that I wanna help people because it makes me feel good to do nice things?
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who can’t help but think about movies in a weird framework like this.
My family thinks I’m insane.
I only watched that movie in the last year or so and this was my experience:
1st 10-15 minutes or so: holy shit, this is hilarious. How haven't I heard much about this movie before?
The rest of the movie: oh
The premise gets old *fast* and as you pointed out, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not really a world where nobody lies but one where everyone is an asshole
I love that the last sentence in this is you giggling about the state of Rickys soul