Ricky's first porky

THE INVENTION OF LYING:Directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson. Starring Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis CK, Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey 15A cert, gen release, 100 min

YOU NEED only glance at the cast list to get some sense of the respect in which the good people of Hollywood hold Ricky Gervais. Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, Christopher Guest and Tina Fey are just a small selection of the luminaries turning up to wave at the camera in the comic’s feature debut as writer-director.

Still, for all his largely deserved success in television, radio and as a stand-up, you sense that the real prize is still tantalisingly out of reach. Despite delivering a gorgeous performance in last year's rather splendid Ghost Town, Ricky Gervais is not yet a proper movie star.

It's not altogether certain that The Invention of Lyingwill change this situation. Co-directing and co-writing with Matthew Robinson, Gervais has made a serious attempt to deliver a philosophical treatise in comic form. The film certainly has interesting things to say – some unlikely to be welcomed by middle-American bible-bashers – but it does not have the smell of money about it.

There is, however, no faulting

the picture’s beautiful high concept. As the credits roll, a sonorous voice (it’s Patrick Stewart, another celebrity pal) explains that we are in a universe where no human knows how to lie and where, as a result, every citizen accepts everything he or she is told at face value.

Thus, when Gervais’s Mark Bellison arrives to take Anna (Jennifer Garner), a better-looking acquaintance, on a first date, she makes sure to point out that she finds him unattractive and will not be having sex with him. A waiter tells them, without much shame, that he has drunk from Anna’s glass and, while Mark watches, wonders if she might be prepared to pass on her phone number.

The following day, Mark arrives at work and is told by his boss that he will almost certainly be fired. Various other disasters loom and nobody thinks to soften any of the incoming blows.

Then, in a reversal you just have to buy without question, Mark inadvertently blurts out a lie in the bank. He informs the teller that he has more money in his account than actually rests there and, trusting him absolutely, she hands over the dosh. Suddenly, Mark has a powerful weapon at his disposal. He alone wields untruth.

Allowing, for the purposes of their conceit, that lies, delusions and creative fictions all fall in the same category, Gervais and Robinson convincingly argue that a world without falsehood would be a close to unbearable. Mark works for a film company that, unfamiliar with the notion of the invented story, makes movies in which distinguished bores talk us through major incidents from history. Jokes make no sense. Irony is nowhere about.

The film’s most daring moment comes, however, when Mark has to visit his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan) and address her fears that she is about to be flung into eternal nothingness. Distraught, he comes up with the biggest lie of all: a man in the sky controls our actions and will welcome us to paradise after death.

Gervais (a vocal atheist) has great fun with the worldwide chaos that results – his iffy, self-contradictory Ten Commandments are scribbled on pizza boxes – but the film admits that this almighty self-deceit grants humans hope and comfort. Once again, lying makes the world endurable.

Well, you may say, that all sounds very interesting, but it doesn't read much like a roaring festival of yucks. After all, you rarely see anyone chuckle while reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Sad to relate, though well acted and neatly structured, The Invention of Lyingis not quite as funny as ought to be. Gervais's The Officeand Extras, both contemporary masterpieces, thrived on character, but his new film, shot in flat televisual style, allows its high concept and avalanche of philosophical ruminations to overpower the relationships. Think how well you know Gareth from The Officeor Maggie from Extras. Set these fleshy humans beside Anna or Mark and the new characters seem like inch-deep ciphers.

The Invention of Lyingremains a worthwhile enterprise, but it must be a worry when the funniest scene in the movie is a one-minute cameo from Gervais's old writing partner, Stephen Merchant. He's wearing a silly hat, you see.