Just had an interesting couple of Ricky Gervais-themed days. Saw his directorial debut The Invention of Lying and then, just to be a completist, caught up with his previous movie, Ghost Town. Although Gervais clearly had a bigger hand in Lying, it is intriguing to note various themes emerging in his cinematic oeuvre. 

Curiously both films feature the Gervais character being followed by large crowds. In Lying it is people who hang on scriptwriter Mark Bellison's every word (very Life of Brian), while in Ghost Town  it is the umpteen dead with unfinished earthly business who want Gervais's grumpy dentist Bertram Pincus to contact the living on their behalf.

Inevitably he plays an average-height, pudgy-ish man in both movies, and gets plenty of gags out of the fact. He is, however, the leading man in both films and, this being America, he ends up with the leading lady both times, despite Jennifer Garner and Tea Leoni clearly being out of his characters' leagues at the outset. 

It is this second point that marks a shift for Gervais. When he made The Office for the BBC he famously insisted on getting his way throughout the production process. While The Office concluded with possible romance for David Brent  it was with a realistic woman, not a Hollywood hottie, albeit one on the wrong side of twenty.  The Invention of Lying, like Ghost Town which he didn't write but clearly had creative input in, feels too often like a generic Hollywood romcom. Admittedly with a few existential asides about why religion exists, but Hollywood romcom nonetheless.

Of the two films The Invention of Lying is definitely superior. It clearly has more depth,  more of Gervais's distinctive voice (both as a writer and as a squeaky giggler, which always makes me chuckle) and plenty of laugh-out-loud sight gags. There are moments when it is reminiscent of Jim Carrey's Liar, Liar – another movie about someone who can't stop blurting out the truth – and it also has echoes of C4's Peep Show, in which interior monologues become exterior. But these comparisons are no bad thing.

What troubles me is that fact that I cannot help wondering if Gervais set out to make something more subversive but could not quite squeeze it into the restrictive 100-minute format. Maybe his ambitions are more suited to the longer sitcom genre where ideas have more room to grow and breath. It is noticeable that Lying starts with a typical sarcastic Gervais voiceover during the opening credits, in which he suggests that no-one is interested in reading the names except for the backstage crew's families, but ends with the usual saccharine music as the closing credits roll. I stayed till the curtain closed expecting another sneery gag but none came. As with the film, but unlike his previous TV work, Gervais could not quite resist an airbrushed conventional ending.