The Moebius Strip

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2007)

Metafiction, since the arrival of Charlie Kaufmann, has become the driving force in cinematic storytelling. Consider that ADAPTATION and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND ar the types of stories which evolve within themselves and turn logic inside-out by breaking the thin layer of fantasy and bringing it into reality. Not that this was groundbreaking, Luis Bunuel was there first, happily deconstructing the art of plotting from BELLE DE JOUR to THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE.
However STRANGER THAN FICTION is less a surreal experience than a blend of what is happening as opposed to what is not, and even what might be implied. Harold Crick has started to hear a voice within his head. It's a voice we hear, too: a woman's voice -- the Narrator. He wonders if there is any meaning to this voice who tracks his every move and peppers it with bon mots. It begins to get intrusive and frankly, he gets fed up with it: what does this woman want? Can anyone outside of him hear her narrate his life? Is he on some perverse reality show? At the same time, Karen Eiffel is experiencing writer's block. She fantasizes constantly about death -- then again, death is ever present in her novels, and the protagonists (regular folk, good people as she later calls them) die senselessly. But, in their death, beautifully written by her hand in narration, they achieve a certain immortality that becomes a work of art in itself. Her public, her success, her reputation depends on their death.
How director Marc Forster blends both the life of Harold Crick with the writing of Karen Eiffel is really what's at stake here and this is the kind of movie where a review about it would destroy any expectations a viewer would have of the revelation that is STRANGER THAN FICTION. Adding to this, its mismarketing as a comedy actually makes it the better picture: the trailer teeters only on Harold's apparent crack-up as he yells and goes berserk at the voice that he keeps hearing but it leaves out the meat, which is a wise move. Harold is much more than a Will Ferrell comedy-sketch: he becomes fully realized as a man caught in a completely surreal experience. STRANGER THAN FICTION has some excellent acting from its entire cast which is of the likes of Dustin Hoffmann, Emma Thompson (in a rather darkly funny role as Karen Eiffel), Maggie Gylenhaal, and Queen Latifah in a role that seems to have been conceived as larger but got lost in the scissors that is the cutting room floor.