Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction (***1/2)

If Stranger than Fiction is remembered years from now, it'll probably be because of Will Ferrell's performance. Ferrell, known more for his loud, over-the-top, performances like in Ancorman shows that he can still be funny without yelling and running to walls, and is capable of very serious moments as well. In the film Ferrell plays Harold Crick. He works for the IRS and, even though he's quite good at it, he doesn't seem to care much for his job. He seems to aspire for more in his life, but is too timid to take any sort of initiative. Really, he's not very interesting as a movie character except for the fact that he hears a voice in his head. Not just a voice, however, but a female voice narrating his own life as it happens.

The early part of the film explores this idea. What would it be like if your life was being constantly narrated? How would it be described even when you were doing the most mundane of things? How could you possible concentrate on your life when you heard someone narrating it, and then how would your ensuing frustration be addressed by the narrator? All of this leads to some very funny scenes which, again, show that Ferrell has potential beyond some of the obnoxious characters he's famous for.

The film's real hook comes when the narrator mentions Harold's "imminent death." She doesn't mention how or why he's going to die, only that he is going to die, and soon. Harold goes to see a psychologist who tells him he's schizophrenic, leading to this exchange:

"Mr. Crick, you have a voice speaking to you."
"No, no to me. About me."

And so Harold decides that he has to find someone whose expertise is in stories. He finds English professor Jules Hilbert, played by Dustin Hoffman, who is just eccentric enough and just enough into literature to think that helping Harold might actually be possible. He suggests that Harold try and determine whether the story being narrated about him is a comedy or a tragedy, leading to some funny scenes where Harold awkwardly attempts to get to know Ana Pascal, played by Maggie Gyllenhal, a woman who Harold is enthralled with but is in many ways his opposite.

Over the course of the film it becomes apparent that the narrator in Harold's head is an actual writer named Karen Eiffel, who was once critically acclaimed, but is now trying to overcome writer's block and finish her first novel in a number of years. The movie's ending raises questions about writing, and about death in fictional stories that would seem crazy to even consider, but somewhat seem to make perfect sense in the context of the film. Would we place the same importance on art if people actually died when art portrays death? It's an interesting question.

The film's ingenious plot is what stands out most about the film, but also of note are some of the visual effects used in the film. Harold, being very much left-brained, thinks entirely about math, and as we see him go about his day, we see things he encounters and interacts with overlayed with a mosaic of numbers and diagrams. On the bonus material of the DVD, the artists who created it called it a GUI, as in the GUI of an operating system. It is a unique effect and my only complaint about it is that it isn't used consistently throughout the film, and at times when it crops up it detracts from the dialogue going on at the same time.

Stanger than Fiction is one of the more interesting comedies in recent years. Its strange but enthralling plot let's Will Ferrell create a memorable character that is both very funny and at times a genuinely sympathetic figure.