A Sentimental But Witty Departure from Ferrell's Usual Farcical Films

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2008)

"Monster's Ball" director Marc Foster's "Stranger Than Fiction" is for its star Will Ferrell what director Peter Weir's "The Truman Show" was for its star Jim Carrey. In each film, these talented comedians play things ostensibly straight without a hint of humor. Indeed, Ferrell proves that he can hold his own without relying on wit and slapstick. Although "Stranger Than Fiction" ends up more lightweight than "The Truman Show," the protagonists in both of these existential, post-modern pictures live in a world that essentially doesn't exist. On the other hand, the Ferrell flick is more dramatic, because his character is destined to die from the outset while the Carrey character in "The Truman Show" is never in jeopardy. "Stranger Than Fiction" qualifies as a much smaller version of Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello's classic 1925 play "Six Characters in Search of an Author," only freshman scenarist Zack Helm's original screenplay could be called 'one character in search of its author.' Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah, Tom Hulce, and Emma Thompson co-star with Ferrell in this imaginative fable about life, romance, responsibility, and what constitutes great art. Interestingly, at one point, Harold watches the Monty Python movie "The Meaning of Life."
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell of "Talladega Nights") is the epitome of the company man. As a senior IRS tax auditor in Chicago, Crick dresses impeccably, lives a model life without a mate, does everything by the book, and maintains a regimented lifestyle from which he never deviates one iota. Quite simply, he is the kind of employee that any employer would die for. He wears a special wristwatch that keeps his life on time right down to a four minute coffee break and a half-hour lunch break. He counts his steps to work and wears his tie a particular way because it shortens the length of time he needs to dress. He is the ultimate creature of habit and his life seems flawless until one day he hears somebody narrating his life and he doesn't know what to do. Naturally, nobody else hears the mellifluous British voice that utters what he does. Eventually, poor Harold learns that he is the creation of a withdrawn, neurotic, chain-smoking author, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson of "Sense and Sensibility"), who is wrestling with a bad case of writers block. There is little to like about Kay and the novels that she pens always end with her protagonists dying. Since she cannot finish her latest novel, which is about Harold, her publisher calls in an expert, Penny Escher (Queen Latifah of "Mad Money"), who has established a solid track record for helping writers complete their books. Karen is obsessed about death and she calls her novel-in-progress, 'Death and Taxes', deriving the title from Benjamin Franklin's assertion that 'in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes'.
Meanwhile, troubled Harold visits a psychiatrist, Dr. Mittag-Leffler (Linda Hunt of "Silverado") and explains his incredibly weird predicament. She informs him that he is a schizophrenic. Harold disagrees with Mittag-Leffler's diagnosis. He believes that he is a character in a novel, so she refers him to literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman of "Midnight Cowboy") who is as puzzled as he is intrigued by Harold. Hilbert puts his literary knowledge to work and tries to figure out what genre of fiction Harold belongs to: is he in a tragedy or a comedy. Eventually advises Harold to live life on his own terms. While he is struggling with his own lifestyle, Harold is in the process of auditing the tattooed owner of a bohemian-style bakery shop called 'The Uprising.' Ana Pascal (cute Maggie Gyllenhaal of "Donnie Darko") hasn't been paying all of her taxes; she explains to Harold that she refuses to pay for the military part of her taxes because she considers it immoral. Initially, neither of them likes each other, but predictably over time, their attitudes change over time.
Again, this is not the typical Will Ferrell movie. In fact, "Stranger Than Fiction" is the kind of movie that you could watch several times and come away each time with something new. All the actors and actresses are at the top of their game. The wacky ending is about the only thing predictable in this interesting epic.