The ending squandered every good will I had to like the movie.

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2009)

Possible, albeit mild, spoilers in the third paragraph so just skip right down to them so you can follow my post. Actually no, I kid. They're spoilers, you shouldn't read them. Because they'll spoil the movie.
So, I've been on a Will Ferrell binge the last couple of days, doing a bit of catching up on the stuff I didn't glory in in my drunken and depraved college days (namely this and his two films from last year - Step Brothers is one of the best comedies of the decade, SEE it). Anyone who's had a passing knowledge of my person knows I'm a crusader against all things quirky, but Will Ferrell is one of my heroes (he stole my heart as Frank the Tank and neither of us ever looked back), so I figured I ought to soldier on through this in the name of completism.
One hour in and I'm thinking that a good movie might be squeezed out of another high concept dramedy and that the quirky tone is palatable because Will Ferrell walks through it. He doesn't yell, which is a bit like like Van Damme not round-kicking people in the mouth, but he does timid and introverted near as good as he does boisterous and narcissist. And he's lucky to have Maggie Gylenhaal next to him, for whom I never quite felt so much in lust as in her role as tattooed anarchist baker. It's all a bit predictable (loner needs to break his routine to love life) but not half-bad.
And then it throws everything away in the last 20-30 minutes. Why movie?? It took some effort on my part to come to terms with Harold's resignation to his death for a book (I mean, it's a goddamn book!), but okay, death may be a small price to pay to be immortalized. But Dustin Hoffman promised a 'one of the most meaningful and poetic endings', so it might be worth the hassle anyway. And then it comes: one big clusterf-ck of pseudo faith-reaffirming schmaltz shot like a UNICEF ad. At that point I wanted to punish the movie real bad, to inflict bodily harm on it. Not only because, being a meta- riff on writing, it violates every writing code of honor with its gut-wrenching didacticsm, but more because it squandered every good will I had to like it up until that point.