An Immense Family Movie—A Must See!

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2010)

Can you imagine your life as a story? Some people today may relate to certain stories that authors have written, but what if you were living a story by an author you didn't even know. Imagine hearing voices in your head narrating your life. The voices would be telling you how many steps to take to the bus stop, how many times to go up and down when brushing your teeth, and even predicting your death. This is exactly what Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) was going through.
Crick, who worked for the IRS, auditing people who didn't pay their taxes was living a non-fiction story. Everything he would do was being controlled by a voice, and the creepy thing was he had no clue who this was. Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) was the author who was writing the story of this man's life. Mr. Crick tried to go about his daily life and keep his mind off of it as much as possible. The next assignment he would take part in would change his life forever. He had to audit Ana Pascal's (Maggie Gyllenhaal) bakery. The first day after working on her taxes all day, he was love struck by this girl who he was auditing. When he was about to leave for the day, Miss Pascal stopped him and demanded he have some cookies. Harold didn't want the cookies and refused to have them for free because he couldn't be "bribed" by the person being audited because it was against the IRS rules. He was as ravenous as a pig and later accepted them.
The couple fell in love with each other swiftly. They soon started to hang out more and more. Ana could also see how Harold's life was controlled. She asked him a few times about it and Harold told her he hears voices and convinced his life was a book waiting to be written. Whatever this author would write or type in this book (which was Harold's life), would instantaneously happen to Harold.
Harold also had a wrist watch which he would keep a close eye on because it kept his life on track. He would know exactly what time to get to the bus stop or how long he had been brushing his teeth. The watch that had kept his life on track was also the piece that would save his life. In the end, Harold tries to find the author who is writing his life. He ends up finding her and explaining the whole situation about writing about his life and told the author he cannot die. Karen didn't believe it all at first, but then figured out it was true. She didn't want to ruin her writing career just because of a bad ending. She ended up writing the story ending about Harold getting to his bus stop that morning a bit earlier, and then saving a boy from being hit by the bus. Harold was injured bad, but lived. The watch that he once used to control his life, ended up saving him from bleeding to death.
I personally liked this movie myself. It had a very steady, normal plot line to it which made it easy to follow. There was also a good amount of humor in the movie as well, I mean it has Will Ferrell! It's like pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, it's good. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good movie!