Good...could have been great

Rating: 6/10 (11 October 2007)

Twist Endings have always faded in and out of popularity over the decades...recent movies, from "The Usual Suspects" to "Fight Club" to the first "Saw," usually bank on a curveball in the last act that aims to redeem something seemingly conventional with a forehead-slapping plot development. In the world of "Stranger Than Fiction," the "twist" is done with such earnestness and honesty that part of me felt bad in not completely accepting it; there is a palpable dramatic swell, after which we cut away to What Really Happened. I guess any movie that casts Will Ferrell as a bland-as-cardboard IRS auditor looking to seize the life he's wasted deserves some consideration, especially in its third-act machinations. Ferrell plays the painfully-named William Crick, who lives a life of routine (counting teeth-brushing strokes, for instance), until one day he begins to hear a woman narrating his life (including a budding relationship with Maggie Gyllenhaal); turns out he's unwittingly become the main character in reclusive author Karen Eiffel's (Emma Thompson) new novel. The catch? Eiffel's lead character always dies. While "Fiction" is modest in its exploration of existential matters, the randomness of its premise comes off as gimmicky; while director Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland") keeps things moving along with a sense of purpose (though the superimposed diagrams that occasionally flash on-screen are a distracting miscalculation), Zach Helm's screenplay barely rises above convention. Ultimately, "Fiction" is a case of the performances really selling the material: Ferrell is quite good in a quietly funny and believably dramatic role; Gyllenhaal is plucky and spunky as his love interest; Thompson communicates a wonderfully wiggy, stress-fried persona; and Dustin Hoffman shines as literature professor who helps Harold with his predicament.