Kaufman-lite. Don't bother.

Rating: 4/10 (13 June 2017)

If you know my style, ambiguous movies are always a scream for me. A film with so much subtext and inner symbolism gives me a lot to enjoy while dissecting and interpreting at different angles. The oeuvre of David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowski, Stanley Kubrick, and even Charlie Kaufman all live up to this notion, offering masterpiece after masterpiece.
However, there are some hackneyed films and filmmakers that shamelessly try to replicate that sort of style. Where they make a story buried in subtext and "mind-twisties" without any grace or intelligence to make it all work. A movie that thinks its soooooo smart with the subtext but winds up obvious and pretentious, and offers a unique universe that is barely explored beyond plot mechanics that make no f-ing sense. And said hackneyed filmmakers is Marc Forster and screenwriter Zach Helm, and said film is STRANGER THAN FICTION, a stupid, bland, pretentious mockery of a Charlie Kaufman film without any understanding of what makes them great in the first place. It's literally ADAPTATION for morons.
Will Ferrel stars as a mediocre IRS agent living a normal life until a narration explains his everyday life like he lives in a novel. See, his whole life is orchestrated by this narrator, a real life author who makes great stories about troubled people. He suddenly hears her, and needs to find the narrator in person in order to understand his true fate.
Sounds interesting, but that's about it. There's literally nothing else underneath that beyond "boy this sounds trippy, yo!" There's no underlying subtext about the nature of authorship, no impressive visuals or symbolism, or any depth of this world beyond the surface level. All it does is illustrate how everyone's lives are like stories right down to the minute plot progression and arcs as if we never took 9th Grade English class! Even then, it's used no more than a guy loosening up, finding his fun inner self, and get laid to a spunky and rebellious girl in the end. Because WE HAVEN'T SEEN THAT ENOUGH ALREADY! This is another problem: the film tells waaaay too much of what should be shown. Subtext is way too much the text in this movie, in which characters blurt out what we should interpret on our own. Here's an example: one of the psychiatrists (played by a bored Dustin Hoffman, no doubt) suggest that this "real story" could either be a tragedy or a comedy. So Ferrell experiments this to aforementioned spunky rebellious girl in a bakery. She tries acting nice to him, but because he's a stereotypical stick in the mud, he rejects unintentionally. She reacted slightly unkindly, to which Ferrell notices. Had the scene end right there, we would've got enough information about whether or not it's tragic or comedic all on our own. But then it keeps going, with Ferrell comically saying "You were being nice and I rejected it. I guess this ends in tragedy." SERIOUSLY?! WHO WROTE THIS? Oh and it doesn't matter since they pork 20 minutes later anyway. Oh well. The whole film is like that, where it constantly holds your hand and expects you to be impressed by its genius. All I'm thinking about is "JUST GET TO THE POINT!"
But here is what really blows my horn. The narrator is supposed to be this high-class author who makes poetic movies about lonely man, and there is a certain recurring sequence of event of which they endure that truly makes it "masterful pieces of work" But as I sit there, I realize, "well why does it matter if that event needed to happen to Ferrell and what kind of poetry to his life should be 'profound'?" It's literally a boring life Ferrell's character is living in, and said event wouldn't make a damn difference at all. Its heavily emphasized in great importance that the inevitable event in his life that the narrator is constructing is what makes this "story" work, but I don't see a damn bit of difference at all! Not to spoil, but it makes no sense.
Even among the frustrating screenplay, everything else is all smack dab right in the middle of "Not bad but not good" section. The cinematography is uninspired, the actors merely act instead of conveying earned and true emotions, the color palette is drab, and the movie is overall a slapdash of clichés and fake emotional moments. I'm more than certain it has its fans, but I'm still hard-pressed to realize how anyone, who has seen at least ONE drama or ONE mind-bender" in their lives, should like this.