The Invention of Lying

I'm not sure why this movie appealed to me so much. I think, mostly, I loved, loved, loved the cast. I also thought it was a funny premise for a movie - that the whole world exists and no one tells a lie? Hysterical, right? Well....actually, I'm not sure what it was. Alex called it "cute". I thought it was "nice", maybe? I'm not sure. There were definitely some funny parts, but sometimes the dialogue was more awkward than funny. I mean, you can only tell Ricky Gervais that he's chubby so many times before it gets kinda tired, and eventually, pretty sad. And Jennifer Garner can only talk about masturbating so much before it gets somewhat uncomfortable, right? I guess, perhaps, this movie is not meant to be funny. Or, perhaps, it's not meant to be so much a comedy as a commentary on life in general, I suppose. The story goes that Ricky Gervais lives in a world where no one can lie. He falls in love with Jennifer Garner's character, who promptly tells him that she is out of his league and would not be going on any more dates with him. He gets fired from his job and has no money and has no idea what to do. He then finds out he is able to tell lies. What follows is a somewhat bizarre turn of events. His mother is dying, and he lies to her, telling her that life doesn't just end, but it continues on (in a somewhat modified version of the Christian idea of heaven). People overhear him, and the entire world camps out, waiting for him to tell them what he knows about death (and life, I suppose), turning him into a bit of a "Messiah" figure, so to speak.
I'm not quite sure what the idea was behind this movie. It was a tad slow - reminded me a bit of "Pleasantville" or other movies like it, where the characters are so naive and boring. Jennifer Garner's character keeps telling Ricky Gervais that they are not "genetically" compatible, and that she does not want to have chubby, snub nosed, little kids. Which, honestly, made her a somewhat unsympathetic character. I didn't really like her much - and I really, really love her usually. Ricky Gervais was mostly just depressing (although, I am assuming, this is what he was going for) and the whole movie just seemed to be an ill-thought through rom-com. I am a bit on the fence about this one. The cast was really good. But I'm just not sure....at least it wasn't very long...