Right now, no comedian seems hotter than Will Ferrell. Whether he’s starring as a race car driver in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”, giving us a blast from the past as a 1970s TV personality in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”, or dressed up in green tights for the Christmas movie “Elf”. However, Ferrell’s latest movie “Stranger than Fiction” had fallen through the cracks, doing lackluster business in its theatrical release last fall. Unfairly ignored by audiences, this film deserves to be appreciated on DVD, as an amusing non-traditional comedy with some darker elements.
Ferrell stars as Harold Crick, an unremarkable IRS agent, who lives a solitary life, always doing everything exactly the same and in a timely manner. However, Harold’s existence is about to get very interesting as he begins hearing the voice of a narrator, telling his life’s story as he is living it. The narrator is in fact a writer, played by Emma Thompson (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”), who is writing a book in which Harold is the main character. Harold must make sense of what is happening to him and learn what kind of story he is living, a comedy or a tragedy, before she finishes writing the book.
This story has very fun graphics to watch, as Ferrell’s character moves from scene to scene, occasional drop down menus appear - like you’d find on your computer screen - and explains his behaviors or environments. Ferrell’s portrayal of the character is spot on, as a working stiff who begins hearing a voice and eventually starts talking and yelling back at it. The story gets really interesting as the audience is introduced to Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal; “World Trade Center”) an attractive baker Harold is auditing and literary theory Professor Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman; “Meet the Fockers”), who begins helping Harold with his dilemma. The scenes with Gyllenhaal and Hoffman are fun, interesting and -at times - educational, as the professor quizzes Harold as to what kind of main character he might be and what kind of story is being told, using different literary references.
This film does not have as many laugh out loud moments as some of Ferrell’s films, and can be surprisingly dark and dreary. However, the only real weakness of the story is in how depressing Thompson’s portrayal of the author is, taking the air out of some of the lighter scenes with Ferrell. Queen Latifah (“Last Holiday”) is also underused in the film as the writer’s assistant, and even she can not breathe life into the bleaker scenes with the author. Overall though, the films mixture of humorous and poignant moments, Ferrell’s creation of a character the audience can root for, and the overarching moral of not letting people run their lives solely by the clock, creates a worthwhile and enjoyable film.
4 out of 5