Indie Movies

This is a movie I started watching with very modest expectations, given the gimmicky sounding premise (an alternative world where lying is unknown). The film surprised me with funny and original satire, and the promise of a possibly insightful look at the very concepts of truth and lies.

Mark (Ricky Gervais) is an average, perhaps a little below average guy who has reached his 40s without achieving much success in either career or relationships. He is a screenwriter on the verge of being fired. The entire notion of screenwriting, of course, has to be rethought in a world without lies! Lacking the ability to create fiction, they must churn out incredibly boring documentaries.

Soon after being fired, and called a loser by more than one always-honest co-worker, Mark is also informed by a girl he has a crush on (Jennifer Garner) that he is too fat and ugly to be a match for her. Mark’s life looks grim, but then, just as he’s about to be evicted from his apartment, he makes a radical discovery -he is able to fabricate things. Since no one is familiar with lies, he is able to talk money out of a bank teller and a woman who is a perfect stranger into a hotel room (telling her that the world will end if they don’t have sex).

Some of the best and funniest early scenes are simple, tossed out lines, the kind you might find on The Simpsons. Since even advertisements must be truthful in this world, we get some hilariously honest descriptions of popular products like Coke and Pepsi. It’s surprising that these products were mentioned by name in a less than flattering way, in a kind of anti-product placement for a change. A nursing home has a sign outside that reads, “A Sad Place Where Old People Come to Die.” Truth, we are reminded, is not always pretty.

Unfortunately, The Invention of Lying is not able to maintain the same strong writing it starts with. The decline comes soon after the film becomes a satire about religion. Mark’s mother is dying, and, to comfort her, he tells her that death does not mean eternal emptiness but a mansion in the sky where all your loved ones are waiting. Next, the whole world wants to know about this afterlife. Mark, then, invents a Man In The Sky, and we learn how the concept of God was invented, at least from an atheist’s point of view.

No doubt many people would be offended by this poke at religion. For me, the problem is that it starts the film on a downward spiral after a strong beginning.
The religious issue is simply too broad, so instead of examining the truly interesting and original ideas that surround truth and lies in an everyday context, we get a rather banal (if still amusing at times) explanation for why people believe in God.
Then, towards the conclusion, even the pseudo-religious theme fades away and the film devolves into a standard Hollywood romantic comedy ending.

I might be less harsh about The Invention of Lying if it hadn’t sucked me in early with the promise of something bordering on the profound. Why do I say this? Well, the very notion of connecting lying with fiction, while not completely original, gets to the very core of things like art and ethics. For example, it leads to questions like, does lying actually serve a necessary purpose for relationships and society?
It’s the kind of thing seldom dealt with in movies, and the fact that The Invention of Lying started off by handling such a heavy theme in a light and satirical manner was truly impressive.

Once the Man In the Sky issue started, however, the sharp edge began to dull. The ending is pure cliche, with Mark interrupting a wedding ceremony. I wonder how often, outside of movies, anyone has actually answered the question rhetorically asked at weddings, “If anyone has reason to object…”

So, The Invention of Lying is something of a mix, starting off as an original satire and turning into a typical genre flick. If you don’t expect a profound discourse on aesthetics, as I foolishly did, and aren’t overly sensitive about religion being ridiculed, you might enjoy it.

The Invention of Lying

Overall Rating:

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indie comedies invention of lying

The Babysitters (2007)
Director: David Ross
Starring Katherine Waterson and John Leguizamo

The Babysitters is a curious movie that is entertaining yet doesn’t quite achieve coherence. It could be a dark satire about modern suburbia, an amoral, hedonistic comedy about teenage prostitution or a cautionary, moralistic tale about teenage prostitution. Instead of settling on one of these modes, Babysitters hedges its bets and veers awkwardly among them.

The movie starts with high school student Shirley (Katherine Waterson) babysitting for a family and becoming romantically involved with the father, Michael (John Leguizamo). Shirley appears to be a shy, demure teenager who develops a crush on an older man, while Michael is an unhappily married businessman.

After Michael kisses Shirley after driving her home, he gives her money, presumably out of guilt. From this, Shirley develops the idea to start a prostitution ring at her high school and proceeds to recruit her friends. Michael, meanwhile, tells his friends about the new kind of “babysitting” service and things move quickly from here.

Both Shirley and Michael are played a bit too sympathetically for the movie to really work as a dark satire. Shirley doesn’t seem like someone who would suddenly turn into a streetwise madam overnight, while Michael seems too guilt-ridden to be telling all of his neighbors and business associates about his new vice.

The Babysitters cannot help but be an essentially amoral film that seduces the audience with the taboo subject of sex between middle-aged men and high school girls. The moralistic tone it takes at times, and especially at the conclusion, seems disingenuous in a movie that mostly treats its subject with such flippancy.

The performances, especially by Leguizamo and Waterson are good, but their characters really don’t gel with the script. The lesson here is that if you are going to make a movie about a controversial subject, you may as well take it to an extreme rather than do it halfway and try to please everyone. The problem with The Babysitters is that it will not really please anyone; it will offend those who find the subject matter intrinsically distasteful, and it will disappoint anyone looking for cutting edge satire or hedonistic fun.

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Comedies have always been popular, but most fall into a sadly limited number of categories –romantic comedy, teen comedy, sophisticated type comedy, and so forth. That isn’t to say that some of these films cannot be entertaining and quite funny. But as as this site is mainly about independent films, I thought I’d take a closer look at some truly offbeat comedies, some you may not even be familiar with.

Schizopolis (1997) is one of Steven Soderbergh’s earlier films, before he became more successful and mainstream (and arguably less interesting). This is a movie that lives up to it’s name. Soderbergh himself plays two roles in this meandering, bizarre story –if it can even be called that– of suburban life, corporate idiocy and a strange cult that looms in the background. There is little coherent structure to Schizopolis. It’s the kind of movie you either get in some way, and find funny, or not. If you like offbeat films, you might want to try it.

The House of Yes (1997), directed by Mark Waters and stars Parker Posey and Josh Hamilton. This is a film that’s almost too bizarre, and occasionally violent, to be considered a pure comedy. On the other hand, it’s also too bizarre to be anything but a comedy, albeit a dark one. It’s the story of a rather normal young man who thinks he is being taken to the normal home of a new girlfriend (Tori Spelling). Unfortunately, the house in question is inhabited by a psychotic brother and sister team who are living out a JFK fantasy. Parker Posey gives a great performance as the nearly foaming-at-the-mouth Jackie O.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) -based on Hunter S. Thompson’s book of the same name. Starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, who are both superb as, respectively (but definitely not respectably), Thompson and his almost equally drug-crazed lawyer. This is a film that I think many mainstream critics felt obliged to put down, simply for the unapologetic and constant drug use. It’s also a good indication of how little these critics can be depended on for good information when it comes to anything vaguely unconventional, for this is a brilliant and hilarious movie. It hardly glamorizes drug use, as it depicts a veritable nightmare existence, but it does this in a way that also illustrates the equal absurdity of “straight” life as well.

Citizen Ruth (1996) -directed by Alexander Payne, starring Laura Dern. The abortion debate may seem like an unlikely subject for a comedy, but this one succeeds brilliantly. Laura Dern plays a glue-sniffing pregnant woman named Ruth who must choose whether or not to have her child. Both sides of the issue are hilariously skewered in this dark comedy that might make you think differently about this emotionally charged issue.

Strangers With Candy (2005)- directed by Paul Dinelly, staring Amy Sedaris. This is based on the Comedy Central show of the same name. Amy Sedaris returns to her role as Jerri Blank, the absurdly out of place 47 year-old high school student.
Stephen Colbert and Greg Holliman co-star as teacher and principal at the high school. This is another movie where the plot is almost irrelevant. To appreciate the humor here you must have a taste for the bizarre and ridiculous, which is provided in ample quantities.

Jesus Is Magic (2006) -starring Sarah Silverman. This is mostly a concert film, highlighting the ultra-unPC comedian, but also has some added sketches. If you are offended by…well, almost anything, you probably should not see this film. What I admire about Sarah Silverman is her willingness to completely disregard sacred cows –who else would make fun of Martin Luther King? She also has a knack for disguising her most offensive remarks with a pseudo-naivete that is almost believable.

Doug Stanhope -No Refunds (2007). This is a pure concert film. If Sarah Silverman has competition as the most politically insensitive comedian working today, it would be Doug Stanhope, who seems to hold nothing whatsoever as the least bit sacred. His routines, which are full of drug references, are a challenge to all conventional standards in a way somewhat similar to the late George Carlin, though, to be honest, Carlin’s routines were getting a little stale during the last decade of his life. You don’t have to share Stanhope’s rather nihilistic spirit to appreciate his humor and the way he blasts through the hypocrisy of mainstream society.

Four Rooms (1995) – this film is divided into four loosely connected stories, directed by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Allison Anders and Alexander Rockwell. They take place in a hotel during one very strange evening. The connecting link is a bellboy, played with slapstick perfection by Tim Roth. This was not very well received critically. The episodes range from just o.k. to outright hilarious (the segment starring Antonio Banderas, which makes it worth seeing all by itself).

Kabluey (2007) – directed by Scott Pendergrast, starring Lisa Kudrow and Scott Pendergrast. A recent addition to my list. This film may not have the best title, as it’s hard to remember, but it’s truly funny and offbeat in a low-key way. Scott Pendergrast directed and stars as a rather hapless loser who arrives at the doorstep of sister-in-law Lisa Kudrow and takes a job at a local company that involves dressing up in a bizarre blue suit and handing out leaflets in middle of a deserted road. If that doesn’t sound like it makes much sense, I don’t think it’s supposed to.

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The above is a rather small sampling of some offbeat comedy of the last ten or so years. I’ve left out some well known cult classics, such as The Big Lebowski and Office Space, not because I deem them unworthy of inclusion, but because they barely need mentioning.

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