Stranger than Fiction
Directed by: Mark Forster
Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, Dustin Hoffman
Rated: PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.
Parental Notes: This is an interesting, thought-provoking film which teens and preteens may well find fascinating. It is a solid PG-13, which makes it unsuitable for youngsters.
Filmmakers seem to have a passion for stories about storytelling. “Stranger Than Fiction” is another film in this tradition, but it adds an existential element to the story of a writer struggling with her novel by having her main character turn out to be a real person, whose life seems to be governed by what she writes.
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is an IRS agent who lives a very ordered life. He brushes of his teeth the same number of times, knows how many steps he takes per block, and can multiply large numbers in his head, among other things. One of the more charming visual motifs of the film is the way maps, graphs, grids, and numbers come up around Harold to show us how he perceives the world. Ferrell’s performance solidifies this and establishes him as a dramatic actor in addition to his known stupid-human-tricks comedian status. Harold’s well-ordered life is brought crashing to a halt when he not only finds himself hearing a voice narrating his life but hears the narrator say offhandedly that he is going to die.
Harold has no real friends, lives and eats alone, and the closest thing he has to a romantic prospect is Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker whom he is auditing. Ana is an idealist. Last year she carefully calculated how much of the government spending was on projects she doesn’t approve of, and deducted a corresponding amount from her tax payment. She gives away food to needy folks at her bakery, and believes in improving the world one cookie at a time. She and Harold are about as opposite as two people can be, so of course they become romantically interested in each other as time goes by. This is a comedy, after all. Gyllenhaal is an old hand at playing charming oddballs, and she makes Ana both peculiar and accessible. The script has Ana’s opinion of Harold change a bit suddenly, but Gyllenhaal is able to make it believable.
Harold goes to Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), an expert on literary theory, for help figuring out how to survive his narrator’s plan to kill him. Jules plunges into the project of solving this mystery the same way he might plunge into a complex literary work. Screenwriter Zach Helm must have attended some high-level English Literature classes, because English majors will instantly recognize Jules as a classic English professor, right down to the organized chaos of his office bookshelves. Hoffman’s performance is spot-on as ever, bringing out both the humanity and the eccentric world view of a man whose entire world is colored by literature.
As Harold is trying to solve his difficulties, across town bestselling author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is dealing with problems of her own: she has no idea how to kill off the main character of her book. Her publishers, fed up with her writer’s block, hire Penny Escher (Queen Latifah) to be her assistant and help her get the book finished. Thompson is a brilliant actress, and she brings Karen and her neuroses to life. Latifah makes an excellent foil, her no-nonsense approach to Penny contrasting perfectly with Thompson’s fearless portrayal of Karen’s eccentricities. Their scenes together are both touchingly real and utterly hilarious.
“Stranger than Fiction” is not a perfect film: there are plenty of quibbles to be brought up from continuity problems to ignored alternative solutions to Karen’s problems near the end of the story. However, the performances and dialog are so strong that the film is a success in spite of its flaws. Its ending is a lovely compromise between the needs of good storytelling and ethical human behavior, and is sure to provoke much thought even in those who find the film unappealing.