It's summer of 1973. Freddie Taylor (Christian Cooke) comes from working class suburb of Cemetery Junction. He doesn't want to follow his father (Ricky Gervais) into the factories. He takes a job selling life insurance from district manager Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes) and Mike Ramsay (Matthew Goode). He has a cool friend Bruce Pearson (Tom Hughes) and an idiot friend Snork (Jack Doolan). Childhood acquaintance and his boss's daughter Julie Kendrick (Felicity Jones) returns to town and is now engaged to Mike Ramsay. Mrs Kendrick (Emily Watson) is the long suffering wife.Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have mashed together a lot of coming-of-age stories for the setup of this movie. It's got great actors although the three male leads are unknown to me. That is its main drawback for the first half. It takes a little while for me to get involved with these friends. Then the movie take some interesting turns in the characters' journeys. It takes some digs at the stale British life. It's a bit uneven between broad comedy and tough social commentary. But I do like the effort it makes.

This film falls flat and only receives a 10 because Emily Watson gives another stunning performance in it as Mrs. Kendrick. She is delightful and mesmerizing as usual and completely dominates every scene in which she appears. While her part is small, her talent is not and that is what makes her presence so essential to what little success this movie achieves. It is always more than worthwhile to see this magnificent actress on screen, in however small the role, and watch what miraculous gifts she brings to any piece. Over and over again she manages to amaze and confound audiences with a magnetism and presence far beyond any other living actress working in any medium. In this film, she sparkles in spite of the lackluster writing and direction that is the fatal flaw which sinks the rest of the cast. It is only her magic that makes her standout in this film failure and her unequalled power that illuminates her participation in spite of the overall cloud of disappointment this movie generates. Do not miss her performance!!!

I loved this film from start to finish. An absolute pleasure to watch! Quick and witty dialogue, feel-good story line and painfully funny, equip with fantastic characters! Not surprisingly brilliantly written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant! An absolute delight, Ricky and Steven should be very proud of this masterpiece.I couldn't get over how good the plot was, and how well written! The musical selection was equally fantastic, really setting the tone of the film well. Also a surprising movie, not only spectacularly hilarious, but sometimes heart wrenchingly touching.Young stars are budding, real talent has been discovered through the making of this film. Particularly by the young Tom Hughes who I thought was phenomenal in this role! Also good performance from Christian Cooke, Filicity Jones, Ralph Finnes and of course Ricky Gervais! Feel-good comedy, fresh, witty and extremely funny, written to perfection! Highly recommended!

Ricky Gervais made his film directorial debut with The Invention of Lying, and this is the first feature to be directed by him and his co-creator of The Office and Extras, Stephen Merchant, I had no idea what it was about, but I was prepared. Basically it is 1973 in the British, Reading suburban town of Cemetery Junction, where three friends, Freddie Taylor (Christian Cooke), Bruce Pearson (Tom Hughes) and Paul aka Snork (Jack Doolan) spend their time joking around, drinking a lot, fighting with each other and some others, and trying their luck chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave his working class life as an insurance salesman in the town, charismatic Bruce works in a factory and has a difficult relationship with his father, and Snork is the lovable loser who works on the railway station but has no luck finding a girlfriend. Freddie finds himself a new job as a door-to-door salesman, and this leads him into being reunited with old school sweetheart Julie (Felicity Jones), coincidentally his boss's daughter engaged to his top seller friend. As time passes the other friends have changes in their life and have to make some tough and sometimes difficult decisions, eventually coming to the conclusion moving on is the best choice. In the end though the only one who truly escapes is Freddie, as Bruce decides to stay and work things out with his father and a working life, and Snork finds himself a girl who likes him for what he is, so the final scene sees Freddie leaving on the train with Julie. Also starring Emily Watson as Mrs. Kendrick, Matthew Goode as Mike Ramsay, Ralph Fiennes as Mr. Kendrick, Gervais as Mr. Taylor, Julia Davis as Mrs. Taylor, Steve Speirs as Sgt. Wyn Davies, Burn Gorman as PC Renwick, The Mother's Anne Reid as Freddie's Gran, Merchant as Dougie Boden, Mike & Angelo's Katy Murphy as Mrs. Waring and look out for Karl Pilkington. The three adolescent leads all give good performances, Doolan being possibly the most appealing, Gervais gets his moments on screen, and Fiennes does alright with his time too, it is more dramatic than funny, but a likable comedy drama. Worth watching!