Stranger than fiction? Or stranger to reality?

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2006)

Q: When is a Will Ferrel movie not a Will Ferrel movie? A: When it's "Stranger Than Fiction".
In the wake of movies like Charlie Kaufman's oeuvre ("Eternal Sunshine...", "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation") and "I Heart Huckabees" comes this more-hit-than-miss what-if story about IRS auditor Harold Crick, a borderline obsessive-compulsive who only learns how to live when he discovers he's going to die.
Pretty standard stuff, but it's handled with a zinger: he hears a voice in his head, telling him what's happening to him at that moment. A narrator. It turns out he's a character in a novel-in-progress by a writer who's infamous for tragically killing off her main characters. And Harold doesn't want to die, despite the fact that he really has nothing to live for.
There's little astonishing in this modestly funny movie, but it's so entertaining and intellectually stimulating that its faults are more than outweighed by its pluses. Will Ferrel has to get the lion's share of the praise here; he goes from near-catatonic at the start of the film to being a very lovable and root-for-able everyman stand-in by film's end. He admirably keeps his comic persona almost completely under wraps here, only allowing it to show in very tightly controlled peeks here and there.
The rest of the cast? Emma Thompson is fine (if a bit showy) as the writer trying to figure out how to kill Harold. Queen Latifah is utterly wasted here as the assistant sent by the writer's publisher to help her complete the book; I'm not even sure why her character was included, as she adds nothing to the story except to provide the pressure from the publisher to finish the book which will lead to our hero's demise.
Dustin Hoffman is a hard-edged college professor of literature that Harold turns to for help in understanding how he became a character in a book. While Hoffman could have done this in his sleep, he still throws off a spark or two above the call of duty.
And Maggie Gyllenhaal. as the anarchist baker that Harold unexpectedly falls for during an audit, is adorable. How could anyone resist falling for her? She's so good in this I almost bought the story convenience of her rapid switch from repulsion to attraction for Harold.
Did I mention there are some problems with the plotting? Without getting too heavily into the details, things are just slightly implausible. I don't mean the part where Harold's wristwatch develops a mind and agenda of its own, or how Harold seems to drift in and out of his job without any repercussions, or even the biggie: how a writer can inexplicably begin writing about and thereby determine the destiny of a real person. No, I mean that things just kind of happen because they need to in some cases, not because they actually make a whole heck of a lot of sense.
You can argue that the whole movie is allegory, that the characters are stand-ins for the human condition, and you'd have a strong case. And the sheer interest this movie generates for its characters allows most of these things to be willfully ignored by a person having a good time.
But these niggling details wet down the wings this movie would use to soar to greatness.
"Stranger Than Fiction" is a sweet fairy tale and is enjoyable as such. It even contains meaning beyond its surface in symbolic terms. But it is no "Finnegan's Wake" or "Ulysses", for better and worse. You could do far, far worse than to watch this movie.