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STRANGER THAN FICTION Send This Review to a Friend
A major film at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, “Stranger than Fiction” creates of a very strange relationship, that between an author and one of her characters. Pirandello wrote about six characters in search of an author. “Stranger than Fiction” settles for one character in search of his author. The film is very clever, intellectually intriguing and presents Will Ferrell in a pleasing role in which his skill at comedy enhances rather than dwarfs the premise.
Ferrell plays and IRS agent Harold Crick who keeps hearing a female voice describing all of his actions. He finds it baffling, and he can’t seem to get his life together. The voice belongs to Emma Thompson as novelist Karen “Kay” Eiffel, and Crick comes to realize that his relationship with her is because he is a character in her latest novel that she is in the process of writing but unable to complete because she hasn’t yet figured out the ending. Eiffel is suffering from writer’s block, and Thompson is excellent conveying her frustrations as well as her upset when she finds Crick in the flesh.
How she chooses to end the book determines whether Crick lives or dies, so he has a strong vested interest in the outcome. Dustin Hoffman portrays the literature expert from whom Crick seeks help, and Hoffman strikes the right droll notes with his performance. In another good bit of casting Queen Latifah is enjoyable as Eiffel’s publisher.
Meanwhile, Crick has been smitten by Ana, a baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Their meeting in the beginning is amusingly confrontational. Written by Zach Helm and directed by Marc Forster, “Stranger than Fiction” is as charming and amusing as it is unusual. A Columbia Pictures release.
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