High-concept comedy with and from Ricky Gervais, co-writing and co-directing with Matthew Robinson. It's set in an alternative universe where everyone by nature tells the brutal truth (even advertisers: "Pepsi, When They Don't Have Coke"), until the brutalized short portly hero, unable to make his rent, makes an evolutionary leap to deceit, and goes on from there to invent religion. The concept is certainly cheeky, if uncertainly funny, but the derigueur romance takes it into sappy platitudes on skin-deep beauty and inner worth. With Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Louis C.K., Jonah Hill, Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, and uncredited cameos for Philip Seymour Hoffman and Edward Norton. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.