THE truth about Ricky Gervais’ new comedy, co-written and co-directed by Matthew Robinson, is that it is mean-spirited, misconceived and starved of big laughs.

Set in an alternate reality in which everyone instinctively tells the truth and the concept of a fib doesn’t yet exist, The Invention Of Lying is ripe with comic potential.

Sadly, Gervais and Robinson take their central dramatic conceit to garish extremes, having characters converse with brutal honesty, regardless of the hurt they might cause.

Predictably, Gervais casts himself in the lead role and as with Ghost Town, he’s an unsympathetic and unconvincing romantic lead.

The notion that Jennifer Garner’s acid-tongued beauty might succumb to his so-called charms is more laughable than anything in the script.

Lowly screenwriter Mark Bellison heads for his bank to close the account but tells a porky, asking for $800 rather than the $300 he actually has.

Having stumbled upon the art of lying, he begins to exploit deceit for personal gain

The Invention Of Lying is a crude subversion of polite social mores. There are occasional chuckles, like a retirement home being called A Sad Place For Hopeless Old People, but they are lamentably few and far between.