You won't believe your eyes...

Rating: 10/10 (12 March 2007)

Nobody likes Harold Crick.
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an IRS agent who is a genius at math. If someone shoots two numbers at them, he will multiply them instantly with the correct answer. He has a wristwatch that he depends on everything for. He wakes up, gets on the bus to go to work, and falls asleep all at precise times down to the second that if he misses, his day will be forever messed up. His schedule repeats every single day of his life. Oh yeah, and Harold hears voices too. It's almost as like someone is narrating his dull life...not telling him what will happen, but what already happened. This voice comes and goes at seemingly random times. One day Harold is re-setting his wristwatch after it randomly shut off while waiting for the bus when the voice says "Little did he know, this simply seeming innocent act would result in his imminent death." When Harold hears this, he begins to fear his death obsessively. But he is not sure what to do.
It turns out the voice is real. It is the voice of author Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who has a bad case of writer's block and a heavy addiction to smoking. She is writing a new novel about an IRS agent named Harold Crick who is very good with numbers. Little did SHE know, Harold Crick was a real person, and just by writing the book, she was controlling his life. Oh yeah, and she wanted to kill off Harold in the book at the end. Fortunately, her writer's block makes the voices Harold hear go away temporarily, and he lives his life in his control. This drives her to hire the expert writer's assistant Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) who vows to help her finish the book and kill Harold Crick.
Harold sees a psychiatrist who recommends him to the acclaimed English literature expert Jules Hibbert (Dustin Hoffman). Together, they try to find out if this voice--who they don't know is a real author writing a real book about Harold--is trying to write a comedy, or a tragedy. So Harold begins to keep track of issues in his life to find out. In the meantime, Harold falls helplessly in love with a young woman who works at a bakery (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who he just happens to be auditing. As you can probably guess, issues revolving around that ended up around the "tragedy" column.
Stranger Than Fiction is by far one of the best films of 2006, and I think Will Ferrell's best film yet. The acting is phenomenal: Will Ferrell is in his best role EVER. Emma Thompson is spectacular and soars above many of her other roles in her incredibly realistic portrayal of an author with writer's block. Maggie Gyllenhaal and legend Dustin Hoffman do a fantastic job as well.
Stranger Than Fiction has one of the most unique stories I've ever seen, if not THE most unique. I was SHOCKED after watching this to know this was completely ignored by the Academy, including a Best Original Screenplay award that would've totally locked sabers with Little Miss Sunshine. Hell, this is one of the most original screenplays I've ever had the pleasure of watching. You won't believe your eyes and ears that someone can actually write a movie like this. I'd say underrated with a capital U.
There's not much more I can say except RENT THIS MOVIE NOW. A film like this simply cannot be missed out on. You will not be disappointed.