Clever, but strangely underwritten

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2006)

The narrative and concept reminded me of Charlie Kaufmann's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Adaptation." But "Stranger than Fiction" is strangely underwritten, even if it starts off with tons of ingenuity and wonder (the way Harold counts and calculates every aspect of his world while his odd wristwatch ticks away his life).
Will Farrel plays the Truman Show part with wit and confidence, and we meet more strong, quirky characters along the way. Emma Thompson is an author obsessed with death. Queen Latifah is the hard-nosed assistant. Maggie Gylenhaal is the socialist baker/love interest. Dustin Hoffman is the off-kilter existentialist detective (oops, wrong movie). I mean, he's the literary psychologist (or something like that). POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.
And they are all full of potential. But, strangely, none of them live up to their potential. Each character is given a magnificent and entertaining set of qualities that all seem to disappear in the self-serious and overblown final third of the film (and re-appear in an epilogue montage that tries too hard to impose a heart-felt "mediocrity is more important than masterpiece" theme on the story"). It's like a symphony of several fine-tuned instruments building to a crescendo, only to go out with a wheeze.
So much more could have been done with the relationship between the assistant and the author (Queen Latifah is sorely under-used). And why, when we've set up the tragedy of the author's life, does she not get to confront her own personal tragedy? Surely, she has suicide on the mind. And why does Harold blithely accept his fate when his life is finally looking up and, as he so freely admits, "I know nothing about literature"? He's a lamb to the slaughter when he should be an angry son of a bitch (see Adam Sandler in the much-better "Punch Drunk Love"). Why does the literary psychologist gloss over his own personal failures to insist that Harold accept his fate? Shouldn't such a moment resonate with the failed-writer-now-professor/lifeguard? And why does the baker/love interest have NOTHING to do except look cute and seduce Harold?
I loved the absurdity of it all -- the odd questions posed by Hoffman ("Are you king of anything? You know, a bowling alley? The trolls?"). I also loved the concept of Harold trying to figure out if his life is a tragedy or a comedy based on how often his girlfriend screams at him. "Stranger that Fiction" certainly succeeds in creating a much more humane story than the sometimes-obtuse "I Heart Huckabees." But, still, this is a work of fiction in which every character is sacrificed in the name of a high-minded concept -- a concept which may leave you smiling in the end, but not after you've scratched your head and wondered where all the characters went.