February 01 2007
Film Review: Stranger Than Fiction
posted by Steven Shaw at 3:29 pm
Stranger Than Fiction Directed by Marc Forster. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson. Rating M – Low Level Offensive Language
Harold Crick hears someone’s voice narrating his life and it’s driving him nuts.
Stranger Than Fiction is Will Ferrell’s Punch Drunk Love. It’s his Truman Show. Directed by Marc Forster, who also made Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland, it’s a fantasy about an IRS auditor who hears a woman’s voice recapping everything that happens in his life. In short, he discovers that he is the central character in someone’s book.
Harold Crick doesn’t believe that he’s going nuts or that he’s schizophrenic, as a psychologist tells him, he instinctively knows to look deeper. So he visits Jules Hilbert, a professor of literature played by Dustin Hoffman. When Crick figures out that he may be killed off by the narrator, an author named Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) he goes looking for her to tell her he’s real.
You might think that this is another screwball comedy. Will Ferrell has certainly done enough of them. But no, it’s more a weighty black comedy with fantasy leanings. Harold Crick is a hollow character, surrounded by little more than what the narrator chooses to describe. He’s probably depressed, though he doesn’t know it, and his analytical mind is really only put to work counting the details in life that don’t actually matter. He is such a drone that he can’t see the big picture.
Until, that is, Crick is sent to audit a baker, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. He slowly falls for her and his ordered life is set to change.
Little touches throughout enhance the feel of a novel: Gyllenhaal’s character Ana has a prominent floral tattoo on her shoulder — a novelist might use this feature to describe her. Crick has a Nick Hornby moment and buys a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, fulfilling a lifelong desire. (I may be mistaken but the volume knob on his amp appears to go up to 12).
Crick’s inner strength and character is unveiled and allowed to grow gently throughout the film, giving viewers the time to invest in him. Consequently, the ending is moving, sentimental and optimistic.
Stranger Than Fiction is a wonderful, uplifting movie. It has plenty of light moments, but like a book it’s too complex to be called a comedy. And like a good book, it lets your imagination take over. Go see it.
See trailers for Stranger Than Fiction here.