Stranger Than Fiction
Directed by Marc Forster.
Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and
Queen Latifah.
Stranger Than Fiction tells the story of Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), a man who leads a life that’s as boring as his name. Every morning he wakes up in his entirely beige apartment, runs through his banal morning routine and trots along to his job at the taxation department. When Harold begins to hear a voice-over narration to his own life which no-one else can hear, everything is thrown upside-down. With the help of a bevy of wacky new friends, Harold comes to realise that no, he’s not insane: the voice in his head may well be just the thing he needs to catapult himself into a new life.
This comedy has a conspicuously brilliant cast. Dustin Hoffman delivers some great lines, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is gorgeous as the tattooed pastry chef who wants to rebel against government taxes and save the world with cookies. Unfortunately Will Ferrell doesn’t seem to have quite enough material to play with in the role of the straight-laced conservative. His performance isn’t bad, but his talent may be better suited to films where he can be all-out ridiculous, like Zoolander and Anchorman. At any moment I was expecting him to leap up and bawl, “I’m in a glass case of emotion!!” Sadly, he never did. The movie is probably saved by Emma Thompson’s performance, as she steps up to demonstrate her range and her brilliance yet again.
The major twist in the movie’s plot is an original one, but in general, while watching this flick about a guy trapped in a boring life, I couldn’t help but think, “Haven’t there been a lot of movies made about this same thing?” Overall, it’s a sweet, cute feel-good movie, that’s funny, if not uproarious. A good movie to go see with girlfriends or your mother.
Two and a half stars. Maybe three, if you have a crush on Maggie Gyllenhaal, like I do.
Madeline Bradford-Becker
In this thinking person’s comedy, which could be likened to a lighter version of The Truman Show, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, we are taken on a journey with an outside/inside perspective.
The director Marc Forster seems capable of transcending all genres, in this his first comedy, which follows such varied fare as Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland and the intense psychological thriller Stay, among others. Influenced by Jacques Tati’s 1967 comedic masterpiece Playtime Forster brings us a stylised vision of modern urban life.
Will Ferrell, in what one may think as an unusual choice for this role, is funnier here as the anal and deadpan IRS agent, than in recent over the top “comedic” performances.
We are introduced to Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) leading his extraordinarily boring mundane existence by the didactic British voice-over Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Thompson is well cast as the neurotic chain-smoking writer who is suffering from severe writer’s block — it’s been 10 years since her last novel (a best seller). Queen Latifah plays a cameo as the publisher’s representative sent to help Thompson break her writer’s block. The depressed and suicidal Eiffel has no idea that as she dictates her novel, her fictional creation is…
Harold, who is ruled by numbers and his wristwatch’s alarm, suddenly begins to hear a voice narrating his every move and thought while counting his toothbrush strokes one morning. He discovers he is the only one who can hear the voice and he inevitably comes to the realisation that it is his life that is being narrated and that the story will tragically end with him being killed off.
This flips his ordered existence upside down and, frantic, he enlists the help of Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) — acting his usual comedy shtick well, but perhaps overplaying the role of a detached, obsessive-compulsive academic.
Jules (Hoffman) advises Crick to discover whether the story being narrated is a tragedy or comedy and to avoid his written death he desperately searches for the author to convince her to change his story and let him live.
Ana (the lovely Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a tattooed baker with a political gripe, who in protest, withholds payment of a percentage of her taxes. Whilst auditing Ana, Crick embarks on a romantic relationship with her, after relentless urging by narrator Eiffel, telling him how attracted he is to her. The touching cookie scene, and tender love scenes between two seemingly opposite types showcase Will Ferrell’s unexplored abilities as a dramatic actor.
First time screenwriter Zach Helm has skilfully woven fantasy and comedy in this intricate, poignant, often hilariously funny yet ultimately heart-warming tale.
