A New Will Farrell

Rating: 6/10 (8 April 2007)

Will Farrell is in a new avatar. Is this the turning point of his career? Time alone can tell. But not for Harold Crick. His life is being controlled not by time but by a tragedy writer Karen Eiffel. Her fiction is his life. Harold is tied up in a routine and going through his life lonely and unaware, until he realizes that he is a part of somebody's storyline.
This film is an example of how incidental cruelty is acceptable in cinema but obvious cruelty is not. Harold Crick could have died at the end but cannot because the viewers are already told he is going to die untimely and unnaturally. From that moment on, the viewers knows that Harold won't die but the question is how will he survive. This is an intelligent way to implicitly engage the viewers in the opposite of the actual proceeding all the while and at the end surprise them with what they already expected. It is traditional, but still a challenge for the writer and the director.
Zach Helm does not complicate the story though he had all the opportunities. He does not focus on the events but on their impact. The idea, I guess, is to capture the helplessness and resignation when somebody already knows what is to follow. Bill Murray was in the same state in The Groundhog Day. Surprising the response of Murray's character and Harold's are very similar. They accept it and wait for it to end, whenever and in whatever manner.
Will Farrell fits Harold like a glove. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are seasoned actors and deliver what you expect from them. Maggies Gyllenhaal is good but her character is very predictable.