Mavis AngWhat if what you said could not only change someone’s life, but determine every detail of it? 
That’s the question Stranger than Fiction poses to cinema goers. If you’ve seen the trailer and thought that this movie is about Harold Crick and an author, believe me, this movie is really about Crick (Will Ferrell) and his Timex wristwatch.
Harold is a harmless man of numbers, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent who gets a sense of security in the exact routine of his daily life. His trusty watch not only dictates every second of Harold’s mundane daily habits, but is also equipped with a chick alert mode and an impending danger warning alarm. Although the watch’s origin wasn’t mentioned in the movie, it never seems to leave Harold’s wrist.
Despite the movie sounding like a typical blah comedy revolving around a lowlife and his misadventures like The 40 year old virgin, director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball) spices things up early in the movie by screwing things up for hapless Harold, minus the slapstick humour most of those comedies adopt.
Just like the little boy in the children fantasy film The NeverEnding Story, Harold finds himself in the middle of someone else’s story. A voice which Harold repeatedly hears accurately narrates his actions and thoughts for the entire show. As it continues reading aloud events which are set in place for Harold, the voice turns his once dull life into a complete mess.
This mysterious voice belongs to Kay Eiffel, played by British actress Emma Thompson, last seen as the lead in Nanny McPhee. She’s a miserable author suffering from writer’s block. Always looking dreary and depressed, all she does is smoke and have suicidal reveries. According to The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Thompson put on no make up at all for this role.
The novel Eiffel was working on started off as a fictional piece about a simpleton called Harold. Little did she know that her character was a real person who possessed the same name, background and even habits. By carrying on with the story, she ultimately rules the real Harold’s life, and now she just needs the right moment of inspiration to conclude her fictional (or she thought) piece with Harold’s imminent death.
Unable to cope with having his life controlled by an anonymous voice, Harold visits a shrink who refers him to quirky caffeine addict Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a literature expert who might be able to figure out the truth in all this madness.
While Harold and Professor Hilbert attempt to identify the voice reciting Harold’s life and prevent his death in the story which would result in him dying in reality, Eiffel, accompanied by her confident assistant Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), is busy scouting for visual ideas for ending her book character’s life.
Thanks to the timely arrival of Ana Pascal, a rock chick baker (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal who displayed much more pizzazz in this role as compared as her recent part as an aggrieved wife in World Trade Center), our pure hearted protagonist won’t have to deal with his state of lunacy alone. Harold falls for his free spirited audit subject as he pursues her unpaid taxes and, after a short courtship which included cookies, flowers, and a soft, muttered rendition of a punk song, Harold finds Ana right in his arms.
Harold’s major improvements in life make it harder to come back to the question of whether Eiffel
will kill him with her words. As the movie tumbles along comfortably, it silently sucks you deeper into darker themes about ethics and sacrifices. Those who prepped themselves for a good laugh upon entering the theatre thinking that it’s going to be a typical Will Farrell movie will definitely be caught off guard towards the end of the movie as it leads up to a thoughtful ending.
Stranger than Fiction is not a motion picture made to snap up awards, yet the low-key production actually made watching the movie extra pleasant. Without any pressure of a spectacular performance, the star studded cast was obviously comfortable in their roles and were just having a good time acting in this film.
Forster’s slick directing made this piece a smooth one without any overdone jokes, multi-layered meanings, or any annoying intelligent inside jokes. It was clean, simple, and just as wholesome yet entertaining as any animation movie about animals. A must watch for die hard romantics or just suckers for good stories.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Movie details
Opens: 4 January 2007
Runtime: 113 minutes
Cast: Will Farrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Marc Forster