In a world where anything is possible, Ricky Gervais finds a way to make it look miserable.
Fans of The Office will, at one point in their lives, have had a debate with another fan about which version of the show is better, the original UK production starring it’s creator, Ricky Gervais, or it’s American off-spring starring the rubber-faced and very talented Steve Carell. The correct answer is of course the UK one, though having admitted that one can then comfortably admit to finding the US version also good. Gervais’ David Brent was a sharper critique of the boss everyone knows who thinks he knows everything. Carell’s performance of Michael Scott is much more comical and warm, a jester instead of a jerk. To like the US version of The Office is to seem shallow, as though avoiding the confronting nature of the UK version’s dark comedy.
I completely disagree. Why? Because Ricky Gervais is a very ordinary actor who has all the subtlety of a brick.
One day, historians will unearth records from the 21st century and stumble across a bunch of DVDs starring people like Ricky Gervais and Seth Rogen and be genuinely perplexed at how these two could be in so many movies. How did so much time elapse before humanity was able to collectively pull itself out of it’s slumber and get them off camera?
It’s not that Gervais is not brilliant in his own way. He has a knack for finding something funny and exploiting it. Just ask Karl Pilkington. But this skill in coming across funny ideas or things has unfortunately led to him acting those out for us, when someone else would do a far better job. Ricky Gervais is David Brent. He’s the boss who doesn’t know when to back off. Sure, his comic sense is far better. But for all intents and purposes he is the arrogant, self-important jerk who always insists that he is more brilliant than anyone else in the room. He seems to have half of Hollywood convinced, as they show up in cameo after cameo, from Edward Norton to Phillip Seymour Hoffman. They are the shining jewels of interest in this movie, actors whose job it is to act. The tragedy is that they surround a not very likable writer/director whose own ego won’t let anyone else be the star.
The idea of this movie, if it isn’t already blindingly obvious, is that the movie takes place in a world where people cannot lie. Not cannot as in forbidden, but cannot as in inconceivable. Even though this concept is not difficult to grasp and is already spelled out in the title, it is further explained in a tedious opening narration, full of ad-lib about waiting for the credits to finish, then a thorough drilling of what the movie was about and what the viewer should “look out for”. Not only is it a painfully tedious and lazy way to introduce a movie, but it’s also arrogant and smug at the same time. It was the kind of thing that belonged on the DVD extras for the intellectually impaired, not as actual introduction to a movie. ”But wait!” someone cries. ”Don’t you see?” He’s doing that to show us what a life without lies would be like. He’s being clever. Yes, and if your IQ is less than 90 I’m sure it was very useful.
Aside from his general unsuitability for leading man, the problem with Gervais’ everyman is that he’s just not very likable. In Lying, he plays Mark, a tubby writer who lives a relatively shitty life, gets no respect and is informed of these truths constantly, ad nauseam throughout the entire movie. If Ricky Gervais relishes in flaunting conventions, then perhaps he has been successful. The usual plot of a romantic comedy is to portray a lovable loser who finally finds courage in order to get the girl. In this movie, the loser is not lovable. He’s just a loser. He loses, we shrug. He wins, we shrug. There is a certain fascinating in watching a fly try to exit an open door. It’s a similar feeling watching a lying, miserable, fat sack of shit try to bag a beautiful girl, yet by the end of the movie you are almost gunning for Rob Lowe because damn he’s just so good looking!
I may be wrong about Ricky Gervais. There may be a whole other way of seeing this movie. There is, for example, the genuine comedy of the concept of a world in which people just say what’s on their minds. From the waiter who tries to hit on the date, to the frank discussions of the chances of getting to home base. There’s also the satirical take on religion, though again the trademark Gervais brick of subtlety spoils a lot of the satire it sets up. But maybe this is more than a simple romantic comedy. Maybe this is an autobiography.
Gervais, a pudgy, uninteresting little man has found a way to make us pay attention to him. It’s all based on a lie and this movie is his confession. Perhaps his brilliance is in convincing Hollywood’s A-list to join in his charade, which helps to convince everyone else that he really does deserve to be there in the spotlight. But without the success of Steve Carell in the US office, without the huge names that appeared every week in Extras, without Steve Merchant’s sharp wit or Karl Pilkington’s ravings, there wouldn’t be much reason to watch Ricky Gervais.
But that’s all beside the point. He has recruited a plethora of famous and funny people who, with their very presence lend Gervais a kind of charm. It may not last for very much longer, but it worked for this movie, if only just.
***
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Totalitarian states make for great stories. Dark, gloomy streets and downtrodden faces are usually the main players, along with a host of ranking officials, almost always on an immense power trip. In The Lives of Others it is no different. Set in 1984 East Germany, some five years before the wall fell, it traces the story of Gerd Weisler, a member of the secret police whose job it is to find and root out the “dangerous elements” of their society. As Weisler becomes involved in the surveillance of a famous writer, he finds himself becoming involved in his life. Slowly, as the plot thickens and as new twists arrive, Weisler finds himself questioning those whom he had once served blindly, but who are apparently the real dangerous elements.
