Are you a tragedy or a comedy?

Rating: 10/10 (10 November 2006)

Stranger Than Fiction is a grown up story. It is a story of an everyman. We aren't given his childhood despair, we don't know how he became who he is, only the nugget that he doesn't like cookies. He could be any of us, who grew up and lost ourselves along the way. Will Ferrel is quiet, restrained, and deeply touching as Harold Crick. The movie of Crick's life made the theatre laugh, especially for those of us that got the literary jokes, but it reflects a lonely life too many of us know. Beyond the superb acting of Ferrel, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Thompson, Ms Latifa and Maggie Gyllenhaal are appreciable side notes. This isn't a Charlie Kaufman film and it doesn't try to be. The fact that Crick is somehow the character of Emma Thompson's new novel is simply a structural element that allows us to see more deeply into his life. It begs us to ask who writes our stories and is our life worth the pages.