makes us laugh at and love its awkward Harold

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2006)

Stranger than Fiction reviewed by Sam Osborn
In Stranger than Fiction, reality and the imaginings of a novelist are bridged by, of all things, a British narration; to be precise, the narration of Emma Thompson. She plays Karen Eiffel, a reclusive novelist struggling with an especially thick bout of writer's block. Her narration, clicked out on a typewriter in her huge, all-white apartment, is mysteriously transmitted to Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), whose every action coincides with Ms. Eiffel's words. His life has suddenly become a narrated event. This would only be a slight annoyance had Ms. Eiffel not foreshadowed Harold's tale with what she calls "imminent death."
It's a great and clever gimmick for a comedy; a gimmick that could gobble up a whole film without trouble and maybe drop in two years later for second helpings on the sequel. But Screenwriter Zach Helm isn't mining for gimmicks here. Just as soon as he settles in, about to rest on the laurels of his neat plot device, Mr. Helm gets back up and spins the gimmick like a top, letting its breadth span more than the silly expressions on Will Ferrell's face. His hero is a man of routine, one who counts out his steps and times his procedures with quick mathematics and numbers. He's lonely and seemingly mechanized, quietly unremarkable at his job as an IRS tax auditor. But amidst the distracting narration that now plagues his routine, Harold meets Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a grassroots tax-evader who rebels against the government with milk and chocolate-chip cookies from her independent bakery. Harold is assigned to investigate her case and, despite her publicly abusing him at her shop, he falls for her. His routine is thus changed, but his death still imminent. For counsel he goes to Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), an expert on literary theory to work up a list of potential authors he might be channeling.
In the same way Jim Carrey sang two octaves lower than his usual high-pitched comic screech in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so too does Will Ferrell quiet down for Stranger than Fiction. It's not as though somebody pressed the mute button on Ferrell's antics; his performance is comfortably natural in all its quaint and charming awkwardness. He plucks laughs from the audience, but doesn't whore himself out for them like in this summer's Talladega Nights. Similarly, in her small role as Karen Eiffel's assistant, Queen Latifah turns in a thankfully understated performance. And finally, Hoffman and Gyllenhaal both shine hard and bright under the stereotype characters they're cast under. But great cast work is no surprise from Director Marc Forster. His previous filmsStay, Finding Neverland, and Monster's Ballhave churned out consistently stunning performances from all actors involved.
The only words I have for describing Mr. Forster's directorial prowess are a "natural affinity for movie-making." Like Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead), his films are driven invisibly. In synopsis and description they're hardly exceptional, but when seen, the films have a preternatural magnetism. They engage us inexplicably close and don't let go until they're through. With Stranger than Fiction, the draw is wonderfully human. It makes us laugh at and love its awkward Harold and let the gimmick work its spinning magic until the whole situation has taken its whimsical turn. It's a wild and delightful success that hopefully won't go unnoticed this upcoming awards season.
Sam Osborn