Intelligent, clever, and intriguing without being pretentious

Rating: 8/10 (13 November 2006)

For those who haven't seen the previews, the basic premise of the movie is this: Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) plays a boring tax auditor who one day starts hearing a woman's voice narrating the events of his life. Emma Thompson's character, Karen Eiffel, is an author who is writing a book and it so happens that the main character in her book is Harold Crick. The things that she writes about her "fictional" character Harold Crick are what ends up happening in the real Harold Crick's life. She is famous for killing off her main characters in the end and has struggled for years to find a way to kill off Harold Crick, not knowing that he is a real person and that she is controlling his life.
The film overall has somewhat of a renaissance, awakening, coming of age type of feel to it. Harold starts out as a fairly drab "tax man" whose eyes are slowly opened to life and whose emotions begin to bubble up inside of him as Karen Eiffel leads him through a series of life-changing events.
The kicker in the movie is that it engages the viewer into wondering how everything is going to tie together in the end. There are a few instances of foreshadowing like one involving an apple that kept me very interested in what ultimate significance it may hold. Early events that seem like trivial details end up being very important for the ending. There is enough humor to keep the mood light, yet it is subtle enough humor to maintain the tension that should exist in a movie where the main character's "impending death" is constantly hanging over him like a cloud.
The movie is smart and witty and I found the acting in it to be quite believable. The intro has some clever visual effects and sets the tone well very early in the movie.
If I had one criticism for the film, it would be that Will Ferrell was at times a little bit too humorous and clever for the type of bean counting tax auditor that it seemed he was supposed to be portraying. Overall, however, I would strongly recommend the movie to anyone who enjoys a good intelligent movie and can deal with one scene of bare male buns in a gym shower and one F bomb.