Willa's Flic Pic: Stranger Than Fiction * * * ½

Stranger Than Fiction
on DVD
Trailer
Marc Forster
Comedy/Drama, 2006
* * * ½




Dr. Jules Hilbert: The thing to determine conclusively is whether you are in a comedy or a tragedy. Have you met anyone who simply might loathe the very core of you?
Harold Crick: I'm an IRS agent. Everyone hates me.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well, that sounds like a comedy!

This is one of those movies that's incredibly difficult to explain. It's not complicated just familiar story told from an upside down point of view. I don't want to give anything away but I want you to be excited about seeing it. So here goes.

Harold Crick is an IRS agent who starts hearing a voice narrating his life. He's the only one that can hear it. He pursues typical mental health means to explain the phenomenon but makes no progress in getting rid of the voice, much less in being understood as anything but a psychopath. Then he hears the narrator predict his "imminent death" and Harold has only one option left - he enlists the aid of a literature professor.

I love it when someone finds a unique way to tell a familiar story. In this case, Zach Helm (writer) deals with the question: What would you do if you knew when, where and how you were going to die? It seems easy. Don't get out of bed that day! But Helm turns this on its ear. Harold makes his choice and, in that moment, the film is asking you - What would you do?

But every character in the film has a choice to make - to take a risk or to change their priorities - either for the betterment of themselves, those around them or the world. We're all connected and our choices do not function in a vacuum. Will you try something new, seize the day, pursue love, risk getting hurt, give hard advice or face a fear?

I have a friend who has an aversion to Will Ferrell movies. Understood. But like Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon, The Majestic, Eternal Sunshine), Ferrell has great breadth. He adds only the amount of humor necessary for Harold with the needed charm of a man waking up to life for the first time. Harold is noble, sweet, generous and thoughtful. You really grow to like Harold and hope for a happy ending to his story.

Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman also have great characters and do a brilliant job as the author and literature professor. The characters are so engaging, I want more stories about them when the film is over. Queen Latifah plays a writer's assistant. My Geek thought the character was unnecessary but I thought she served a great purpose.

Marc Forster and his crew do a great job in creating the look and feel for this film. The scenes were set with lots of white and neutral angular spaces. It reminded me of pages in a book.