Keeps you entertained while making you ponder occasionally

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2007)

At first glance, there seems to be some similarity between this movie and Luigi Pirandello's "Six characters in search of an author", but the similarity is only superficial in the aspect of character(s) searching for author. While "six characters" is a clever form of theatre, STF is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Through a very imaginative plot, the audience is treated (this movie indeed a treat) to a story of how tax auditor Harold Crick's (Will Ferrell) clockwork like life is changed by some remarkably unusual events. Cleverest is the establishing scene, how it suck the audience into a reality that is indeed stranger than fiction. Quite innocently, the movie starts with somewhat commonplace voice over describing the daily routine of Crick. But it soon dawns on them that Crick is also hearing this voice over, inside his head. Continuing to unfold is that this voice over is actually the text draft of a book that contemporary novelist (who even lives in the same city as Crick) Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is writing. Just as the audience, through some mental gymnasium, is sorting out this somewhat unusual situation, the master stroke is delivered  Eiffel has a penchant for writing tragic stories, with the hero dying in the end.
Surreal as the plot it, it offers ample opportunist for comedy as well as poignancy, and the movie succeeds on both counts. Wild as he can be as in "The producer", Ferrell proves that he is equally at home with the Murray-type minimalism, which is not just doing nothing (which everybody can) but doing something with doing nothing. Maggie Gyllenhaal is lovable as the sweetly defiant bakery owner (having had enough of Harvard law) who deliberately withholds 30% of her tax payable to make a point - her social conscience. A romance that starts with animosity is usually fun to watch. With great acting and great chemistry, Ferrell and Gyllenhaal make this not only fun, but a special treat. Thompson and Dustin Hoffman (a professor that is Crick's court of last appeal to save his life from Eiffel's ruthless pen, or typewriter, to be exact) are two veterans solid as a rock in providing and anchor for this rather bizarre tale. Only Queen Latifah is somewhat wasted, as the soberly practical assistant to the writer, not having any opportunity to display some of her flamboyance as in "Chicago".
STF succeeds in providing all at once excellent entertainment and something to think about, by exercising good constraint in the both comedy and the "philosophy" aspects. As a result, it comes across being natural and sincere, rather than outrageous and contrived. The reference to literature also puts it in the good company of films such as "Finding Forrester" (2000) and "Freedom writer" (2007).