The Invention of Lying

The Invention of Lying (2009) is a fantasy comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Co-written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, the film imagines a world where humans are biologically incapable of saying anything untrue — ads, first dates, eulogies, job interviews, all of it delivered with brutal, unfiltered honesty.

Mark is a pudgy, broke screenwriter at a studio that only produces historically accurate films — about as exciting as they sound. His date with the gorgeous Anna (Jennifer Garner) goes nowhere because she simply tells him he's not her type. Then something misfires in Mark's brain and he tells the world's first lie. The teller at his bank hands over money he doesn't have, and suddenly Mark realizes what he's stumbled onto.

Gervais assembled a wild cast around himself: Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Guest, and Edward Norton. The film plays the premise for laughs but also lands somewhere unexpectedly tender — a world without lies turns out to be a surprisingly lonely place. Stream The Invention of Lying (2009) in full online on iFILM.