copyright 2009, The Washington Post A subversively amusing religious satire, 'The Invention of Lying,' more than any of Ricky Gervais' projects to date, conveys the humanism that has often been submerged in his pricklier characters and on-screen persona. Watching Gervais in 'The Invention of Lying,' one gets the sense that we're finally seeing the man underneath the clown's greasepaint. Gervais, best known for the BBC series 'The Office,' plays Mark Bellison, who lives in a town where no one has ever lied. Mark shows up for a first date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), and she informs him that she has just been masturbating. Over dinner, she tells him he's not handsome enough to date, while a waiter blurts out he's 'embarrassed to work here.' The people who inhabit 'The Invention of Lying' simply say whatever is on their minds, and they have no reason not to believe one another. Gervais, who co-wrote the script with Matthew Robinson, convincingly sells this smart, often surreal meditation on the morality of dishonesty. After Mark is fired and evicted, he goes to the bank and suddenly acquires the ability to be dishonest. He informs the teller that he has $800 in his account (he doesn't); she promptly gives him the cash. But when he discovers the ability to make things up, the town comes alive. He writes a sci-fi fantasy and becomes a huge success. When his mother is dying, he delivers a soliloquy about the happy afterlife, which makes him a latter-day prophet. Tina Fey and Rob Lowe, as Mark's mean-spirited colleagues, refer to him as a fat loser. It's possible, when people are cutting each other to shreds, to glimpse Gervais' own unrestrained id. He's making a plea to end the tyranny of appearances and superficial first impressions. If we're witnessing a struggle in 'The Invention of Lying,' it's between Gervais' own competing angels. A clue to which one triumphs comes in a scene shortly after Mark begins to lie, when he encounters a suicidal neighbor (Jonah Hill) and discovers the redemptive power of random acts of deceit. 'The Invention of Lying' (PG-13, 100 minutes) contains profanity, sexual material and a drug reference. 