Stranger than Fiction (2006)
Written: Dec 12 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Ferrell, Gyllenhaal, Hoffman, Emma Thompson
Cons: none particularly
The Bottom Line: ...
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| lemon_lime's Full Review: Stranger Than Fiction |
There is a certain kind of film that, if done well, I fall for each and every time, that plays to some inner note within my heart that never fails to respond accordingly. I'm not sure precisely what it is that resonates so soundly in these films - and it's not for lack of thinking about it, I can assure you - but then again, perhaps that's exactly what perpetuates it; it's a feeling rather than a word, a perfect moment rather than a summary paragraph.
On some level, all of our lives are stories. Epics, comedies, tragedies, and everywhere in between - we all live lives of high drama and quiet desperation, continually at the mercy of fate and/or coincidence despite our often fierce denials to the contrary. But in Harold Crick's (Will Ferrell) case, his life actually is a story, and one in the midst of being told by a brilliant, reclusive English writer (Emma Thompson) with a propensity for killing off her main characters, no less.
Harold's gradual realization, which begins when he hears a narrator's voice while brushing his teeth one morning, starts him on a curious journey to track down the voice in his head, a quest that takes this lonely IRS tax auditor far away from the monotony of his carefully maintained comfort zone and into the world around him that he's long kept his distance from. And there, he finds love. He becomes smitten with one Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a local baker with a penchant for anarchy and a hatred of the IRS. Harold only has to figure out how to make her love him back - and then stay alive long enough to enjoy it.
To this end, he enlists the help of an esteemed literature professor, Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), hoping to figure out who is writing the novel he is stuck in, and then convincing this faceless female author/narrator to let him live on at the end of the story. Professor Hilbert diligently sets about discerning whether Harold's story is a comedy or a tragedy, and asks Harold to begin tracking and recording all of the moments and events that make up his daily life. And then everything begins to change.
Derided by some critics as "Charlie Kaufman lite", which is more than a bit unfair (and as if this would be a bad thing anyhow), Stranger than Fiction actually works best in the moments when it's not being overly clever, when it reaches for a kind of warmth and fanciful whimsy that you'd simply never find in a Charlie Kaufman movie (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). While Kaufman's films are incredible - and I would count myself among his biggest fans - director Marc Forster is clearly going for something different here (despite playing on Kaufman's turf), a notion best expressed in a scene where Harold sits on the couch at Ana's apartment and quietly plays an acoustic version of the minor punk classic "The Whole Wide World" for an audience of two. It's the film's "Say Anything" moment, and in that moment, you realize why casting Ferrell was a stroke of genius - he's definitely got a career as a more serious actor ahead of him if he so desires - and why a film as surreal and unbelievable in some instances is ultimately so believable in others.
The love story that informs the best parts of Stranger than Fiction - and make no mistake, despite its existential bent and surreal elements, this is certainly a love story at its core - is a sweet and whimsical thing kept mostly afloat by the basic goodness of its characters, and of the actors behind them (Ferrell and Gyllenhaal). We want these people to fall in love and we want good things for the both of them, separately and alone, which is why Harold's efforts to keep his "story" going (and, thus, his life) are ultimately so compelling.
Director Marc Foster, who previously showed his wide range by making two brilliant but vastly different films, "Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland", back to back, shows yet another side of his talent with this latest film, the actors shine across the board, the script twists in decidedly interesting ways (though the end was a bit weak, in my mind) and Stranger than Fiction winds up being one of the stronger mainstream films of the entire year.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
lemon_lime
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 - Top 1000 |
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