Pleasant but unremarkable

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2014)

Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a routine driven IRS auditor. The movie starts with a narrator (Emma Thompson) but then he starts hearing her voice one day while brushing his teeth. He is distressed by the voice and breaks him out of his routine. He breaks out of his lonely isolated life when he audits wild angry baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who refuses to pay the part of her taxes for national defense. It turns out that the voice belongs to writer Karen Eiffel. The publisher hired Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) as her assistant. She's blocked trying to figure out how to write Harold Crick's death. Harold is sent to literary professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) for help.
This feels like a Charlie Kaufman movie except he would have done something more than simple quirky. Director Marc Forster makes a pleasant if somewhat unremarkable movie. It's well made visually simplified film. The sterile feel leaves the movie without the required warmth. Will Ferrell is playing the everyman. This is more quirky than funny. It has a couple of chuckles but nothing too outstanding.