Well thought out, well directed

Rating: 9/10 (25 October 2006)

Sony/Columbia Pictures - 113 minutes Will Farrell/Dustin Hoffman/Emma Thompson
Warning - this is not your children's Will Farrell movie. But that's not a bad thing. Many (might I say most) typical Will Farrell movies are a little over the top with easy slapstick, teenage boy laugh humor. This movie has a heart. Many of the great laughs don't even come straight from Will Farrell.
This is a vary subdued, laid back, well thought out movie, that progresses much like a well-oiled machine. Every movie usually has a love story of some kind in it, but even within the well-thought out main plot, at the heart of this movie, is a love story. It's not gooey or gushy, but a straight-ahead, nerdy guy becomes a man (and yes, in this one it works quite well) and falls in love.
The concept of the movie (and main plot) is that Harold Crick (a stuffy IRS auditor) starts hearing a female voice in his head, and it has a British accent. Yes, understandably, for the comic factor, no one else can hear it, but it seems to know him, narrating his entire life, just as he's living it. It drives him crazy.
First he visits a psychiatrist, and then, from there visits a literary professor, all in an attempt to get hold of his life, which is being torn apart from end to end, due to this voice in his head.
It turns out, Karen (played by Emma Thompson) is a well known author, writing a book. Each sentence she types is what Harold hears in his head
Of course, that, in and of itself is disturbing to him, but not as disturbing as what he finds out the author is going to do to him in the end of the book she's writing....
Gross out Factor - .5 (as they walk through a men's locker room, there are a few old man butts seen, very briefly) Profanity Factor - .5 (just a handful of words to get their PG13 rating) Sex Factor - .5 (just a little bit - no sexual nudity) Feel-Good Factor - 5 - all in all, after leaving the movie, I knew inside that I had a really good time and felt good about having seen the movie. I'd recommend it to 99% of my friends. It was definitely worth spending all of the 113 minutes in the theater.