Good, but only a partial cigar.

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2006)

I found "Stranger Than Fiction" to be one of the best movies I have seen in theaters for an extremely long time. It's plot, though not completely a newly formulated idea, as babsbnz from Chicago, IL ( ..."a la 'Groundhog Day'...") so perfectly stated, is quite engaging. Will Ferrell did a very good job switching from his more comedic characters, such as his well remembered "Elf", to being quite solemn.
"Stranger Than Fiction" did have two goofs that jump out. Firstly, in one scene Harold Crick sits calmly on a bus reading the story of his life. As time passes, the bus comes to the end of it's route, with Harold remaining oblivious and absorbed in his own story, and pulls into the bus garage, for lack of better term. At this point there is a cut to a forgettable scene where I found myself curious as to how Harold would return home; however, within the next scene, Harold surprisingly found himself once more, as I figured, in the same bus, still reading his life story. Viewers are left to ponder whether Will Ferrell was visited by his fairy god-mother and granted magical powers all in one scene cut.
The second glitch in this movie is in the script. Harold Crick is forced to live (how long must be solely determined by the viewing of this movie) with a narrator depicting his novel life in a smooth British accent. As this is the main part of the storyline, it is assumed that the reason Harold Crick is able to hear this narrator would be explained. Even if not fully explained, some explanation seemed to be quite necessary to allow a viewer to fully comprehend "Stranger Than Fiction".
Over all, this movie, hardly able to be considered comedy, was very good and worth the ever increasing ticket and concession stand prices.