The Invention of Lying/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anvilicious: Religion is LIES!!! A clever idea maybe but there are people who found devoting nearly all of the entire second half of the film to playing around with the concept to be very heavy handed. The promotional material marketed it like a soft comedy/drama about the hilarious hijinks one could come up with with a world without lies... only to realize that it's actually a commentary about how religion is dishonest?!
    • Mitigated by the fact that these lies were initiated by the protagonist, and with good intentions.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The second half of the film focusing heavily on deconstructing religion and love is seen by some as a waste of the premise.
  • What an Idiot!: In a world where deception is impossible, being a career criminal is possibly the dumbest thing anyone can be, never mind committing a crime of any kind. We get an example of how utterly stupid this can be with Mark's father.
    • Except, you know, Mark was probably lying about that, since he'd just discovered the advantages of doing so. The idiocy of being a criminal in such a world is what makes the anecdote about his dad so surreally humorous.
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