- Director: Marc Forster
- AMG Rating:
- Genre: Comedy Drama
- Movie Type: Fantasy Comedy, Tragi-comedy
- Themes: Creative Block, Existential Crisis, Facing Death
- Main Cast: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson
- Release Year: 2006
- Country: US
- Run Time: 113 minutes
- MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
A socially isolated IRS agent whose every move is documented by a disembodied female voice discovers that his life is the subject of a book currently being written by a best-selling author, whose creative block has stunted her repeated efforts to kill him off, in a quirky fantasy comedy written by Hollywood hot property Zach Helm and directed by Finding Neverland's Marc Forester. Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) lives a life of solitude. Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) can't seem to find a way to finish her latest book. Though Harold and Kay have never actually met, their fates are about to become intertwined in a most unusual manner. With her publishers growing increasingly impatient with her apparent inability to put the finishing touches on her latest novel, Kay is assigned a new assistant whose task it is to help provide the creative push needed to get her book finished and into the hands of her many eager fans. The subject of Kay's novel is a lonely and despairing IRS agent named Harold Crick, who believes that his life has lost any real meaning. As Kay continues to weave Harold's woeful tale without realizing that her protagonist is actually a living human being unable to concentrate on his life and career due to the constant interference of the narrator who inexplicably seems to anticipate his every move and read his every thought, her continued efforts to kill her perplexed subject finally provide him with the incentive needed to fully experience life by seeking out the source of the voice that plagues him. Penned by the screenwriter named by Variety magazine as one of the "Top Ten Writers to Watch" and who was also included in Esquire magazine's "Best and Brightest" list of 2004, Stranger Than Fiction features supporting performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie GuideReview
It's a great movie no matter how you look at it, but it's hard not to notice that Stranger Than Fiction is the best movie Charlie Kaufman never wrote. The story-within-a-story-within-a-story premise smacks of the über-meta style Kaufman brought to Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) awakens one day to find that he is, in fact, the main character in a novel being written by an eccentric, chain-smoking writer named Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson. This is where we would expect the narrative to start nose-diving towards meta-land; the movie's story is Harold's story, but Harold's story is apparently Karen's story. If Charlie Kaufman were writing the script, this is where he himself would make his appearance because the whole thing is, in fact, the screenwriter's story. But lucky for us, Stranger Than Fiction's actual writer, Zach Helm, hits the ball out of the park on this point: he stays out of it. The film turns out to be a classic (classic meaning enduring, not meaning a pseudonym for trite) tale about the self-imprisonment of modern-life, about the value of companionship, and about the joy of infinite possibilities. The wild premise -- while always entertaining -- eventually takes a back seat to Crick and his existential adventure.This is another area where the film bears a strong resemblance to a Kaufman project, as Will Ferrell's uncharacteristically sensitive, intimate performance is very reminiscent of the way funnyman Jim Carrey did the same thing in Eternal Sunshine. Watching a loud-mouthed comedic actor keep it "reeled-in" has novelty, but Ferrell does a lot more than that here. He proves he can really act, portraying Harold with more than enough love and authenticity for us to pull for him as he falls in love with the feisty, anti-establishment pastry chef he's auditing (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Harold pursuing a romance with the ill-tempered baker becomes just one of many ways in which he tries to make the story of his life into something he's proud of. It may sound hard to believe, but as the movie progresses, the fact that key elements of Harold's life are being decided by they keystrokes of a reclusive novelist becomes fairly easy to accept. By the end, Harold's sweet, unpretentious, and extremely poignant story doesn't belong to screenwriter Zach Helm or even to Karen Eiffel, it's just Harold's and, by extension, ours. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
Cast
- Will Ferrell - Harold Crick
- Maggie Gyllenhaal - Ana Pascal
- Dustin Hoffman - Professor Jules Hilbert
- Queen Latifah - Penny Escher
- Emma Thompson - Karen 'Kay' Eiffel
