Never underestimate the genuine appeal of reality

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2016)

What an imaginative and touching story! Marc Forster's "Stranger Than Fiction", written by Zach Snyder, is a movie that could have failed in so many aspects despite its creative premise, yet the story confidently moved forward, punctuated by clever, poignant and thought-stirring twists.
And Will Ferrell's performance is integral to the film's success because he plays a nuanced and extremely restrained character who contradicts the very comical premise of the film, as soon as we think this is going to be a fantasy-farce. This is even more pleasantly surprising as Ferrell is like the Bill Murray of his generation, a SNL alumni used to madcap comedies where he plays eccentric and one-liners-throwing characters. Here, he is Harold Crick, a meek and discreet IRS agent who lives under a steady routine guided by an electronic wristwatch.
The opening voice-over narration insists that nothing special ever happened to Harold Crick... for the simple reason that he's the one controlling his life and saw no reason whatsoever to make this change. He's no Truman Burbank or "Fight Club" Narrator; he likes the minimalist scope he gave to his life for twelve years (from his Spartan house to his by-the-book ethics). But who said we've got to make our own existential crisis? One day, a voice starts narrating Crick's thought as he's brushing his teeth, there's something literary in the disembodied (female) voice he hears, Cricks stops brushing his teeth, starts again, and then the voice describes his feeling at that point. We get it, it's the story of a character who hears the narrator, and this premise is exciting enough.
But there are reasons I mentioned Bill Murray or Jim Carrey in this review, "Stranger Than Fiction" feels like one of these clever concept movies ("Groundhog Day" or "The Truman Show") but Ferrell plays the protagonist differently than Bill Murray as Phil Connors, and even Jim Carrey managed to be comical at times like giving a wink to the audience who needed at least one funny grin. Ferrell doesn't surrender to comedy no matter how comedic his situation gets, he plays his character as if something serious, like an illness, was happening. And this is a revelation, a proof that any actor, given the right story and direction, can go beyond the preconceived limits of his acting range. Adam Sandler gave me a similar impression in "Click" but the film wasn't as consistently good.
"Stranger Than Fiction" never takes its originality for granted. The narration is only the starting point, we only hear it during crucial times, and it starts being a problem when the narrator is revealed to be omniscient, and explains that a simple act Crick just committed will lead to his imminent death. It is not the word 'death' that provokes a sudden outburst of angst, but 'imminent', tragedy material. When a voice that knows everything about you or your most hidden thoughts tells you that you're going to die, well, even the most Cartesian and sensible man will be likely to believe it.
Crick goes to a psychiatrist played by Linda Hunt, she diagnoses a case of schizophrenia but suggests him to ask a literature professor. Within the twisted premise of the story, this is implacably logical, so Crick goes to Pr. Hilbert, played by Dustin Hoffman. Detached and rational, Hilbert gives him homework. Crick must determine whether he is a comedic or tragic character, one that is governed by the continuity of life or the inevitability of death. Crick must test whether he controls his storyline (or not, like a tragic character) and then tries to do whatever he wants, if his death is so inevitable. At that point, we already forgot about the narrator, and the film gets closer in themes and tone to Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's masterpieces.
Indeed, "Stranger Than Fiction" made me realize why self-referential movies are so fascinating, they have something inherently human behind entertaining plots. And the core of the story is the sweet romance between Crick and a free-spirited tattooed tax-rebel baker played by Maggie Gylenhall. When he starts auditing her, you feel the attraction, but he can't reach her heart because he's stuck up to his job, and it takes time for him to finally allow her to reach him. The chemistry feels real as there's something authentic in their performances, Ana loves what she does, and Harold, governed by the necessity to give a meaning to his seemingly meaningless life, starts doing what he loves: playing guitar, developing friendship, pleasing himself.
Ultimately, Ana falls in love with him and Crick thinks he might be in a comedy, until he finally sees the face behind the voice, it's author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who seems to be the one pulling the strings. The trick is that she always kills off her lead characters, and the trickiest part is that Crick's life is only depending on whether she decides to kill him off or not. She shares her mental block with her editor's employee (Queen Latifah) wondering about the perfect way to kill Crick, until she realizes that he exists. The film escalates to the level of mind-bending genius (a word that has been so overused for the likes of "Inception") when she gives Crick the manuscript. Hilbert reads it and considers it a masterpiece with his death being part of that greatness. And Crick reads it and agrees.
It all comes down to a simple question: should one die just because it makes a terrific ending? This is one of the greatest narrative tricks ever pulled on screen and an existential lesson. Crick gave his meaningless life a meaning (wasn't he laughing at "The Meaning of Life" in the theater?). Maybe life can be less flashy than its dramatized version, yet as 'disappointing' as the ending was story-wise, it was deeply moving and touching in the way we connected it to our reality and a little bit to fiction.