Missing Something

Rating: 6/10 (10 December 2006)

Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is a writer who has writer's block. She is deeply involved in her latest novel, but can't find a way to kill off the main character of the book.
Without knowing it, Karen is writing a real life story about an IRS tax agent named Harold Crick who is a loner in life and at work. He spends all day by himself and has no social interaction except with those he is auditing. If Karen writes that he trips over a curb, the real life Harold trips over a curb. If she writes that he makes a telephone call, the real life Harold makes a telephone call.
Harold (Will Ferrell) hears the voice of the author narrating his life. Harold is becoming frustrated since no one else can hear the voice and simply thinks he's crazy. When standing at a street corner waiting for the bus, Harold hears the narrator say that he had just set in motion events leading to his imminent death.
In an effort to get help, he asks literary professor Jules Hilbert (Dennis Hoffman) to help him figure out who could be writing this story and how he could prevent the grim ending. The professor tells him he needs to figure out whether he is in a comedy or in a tragedy and that they can go from there.
Harold is in the process of auditing a baker named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) when he realizes that the plot of the story is beginning to lead him to fall in love with Ana.
In an effort to figure out which genre Harold is being written in, he starts keeping tally on everything in favor of a comedy and everything in favor of a tragedy, and his relationship with Ana becomes the center of his checklist.
Harold finally is able to come in contact with Karen to inform her that he is real and needs her to write his death out of the ending.
Just like Harold, this movie does not know whether it is a comedy or a tragedy and it suffers greatly for that main reason. The acting is fine and the dialog is interesting and fast paced (Much like an Aaron Sorkin type script) but in the end the movie isn't quite sure what it wants to be and causes for the ending to fall flat.
I thought the ending could have been much better, but the movie overall is decent. It's certainly a movie with a lot of potential, and many may feel like it reaches it fully, but this movie simply didn't end the way it should have...at least not in my opinion.