Understated and possibly underestimated

Rating: Null/10 (9 March 2009)

If you felt that your life was a story, how would you want it to work out and what would you do to ensure this? That's challenge enough. But suppose someone else was writing your story and plotting your imminent demise, what would you do then? This is the dilemma facing bored and boring tax auditor Harold Crick (Will Ferrell in a refreshingly nuanced performance).
The person writing his life is, he discovers, successful English novelist Karen Eiffel (the always excellent Emma Thompson) who is struggling to work out quite how he should die, assisted in her writer's block by a no-nonsense aide called Penny Escher (played by Queen Latifah). Harold is helped to find his way by Ana Pascal (a cute Maggie Gyllenhaal) who runs a cookie café and is withholding tax and by Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) who is something of an expert in the "Little did he know" literary genre.
This is not an easy film to categorise. It is a kind of romantic comedy but more understated and thought-provoking than your usual rom-com. It is a quiet work with some charm that is ultimately made by the succession of fine performances from its leading actors.