"The Invention of Lying" is a provocative fable that operates on a couple of levels. On one level is a satire on the origins of religion, according to the filmmakers. On the other level is a princess-and-the-frog romantic comedy.

Both levels succeed in the comedy department with some sweet and some challenging moments thrown in as a bonus.

Ricky Gervais plays Mark, a screenwriter who lives in a world without the concept or the practice of lying. Everyone speaks his or her mind.

Tina Fey plays Mark's secretary, and she tells him she's loathed every minute she's worked for him. Rob Lowe plays Brad, Mark's professional rival. He tells Mark how he outright hates him because he's a loser.

Mark's a bit overweight, he has a pug nose and he's a sloppy dresser. So you know how it's going to go when he lands a blind date with Anna. She's played by Jennifer Garner: Need we say more?

She tells Mark she's out of his league, and she's seconded by the waiter. Anna is fishing in the gene pool for suitable DNA to pass on to her kids, and Mark isn't her idea of a good catch. It's not a kind and gentle world.

But things change for Mark when he tells this guileless universe's first lie in order to come up with his rent money. It's a light-bulb moment that changes his life. Suddenly, he can win at gambling, get his old job back and seduce women because people believe anything he says.

When his mother is on her death bed, agonizing over an eternity of nothingness, Mark tells her about an afterlife where everyone gets the key to a mansion and loved ones are reunited. The old woman dies happy, but word gets out and Mark is forced to share his invention. His vision comes with a good place and a bad place and a "man in the sky" who causes everything -- good and bad.

Gervais -- best-known for the BBC's edition of "The Office" -- also co-wrote and co-directed the movie with Matthew Robinson.

Their approach is gentle, and you find yourself becoming more interested in Mark's romantic struggles than in the big theological and anthropological questions. That's because of the actors' likability.

Gervais is a good-hearted liar who seems enlightened by an alternative to a world where unvarnished truth can be a destructive thing. Garner is radiant, and her transformation from a Hitler-like eugenicist to a woman who can see below the surface is one of her career's high points.