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Stranger Than Fiction

USA 2006
Directed by
Marc Forster
113 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Andrew Lee
3.5 stars

Stranger Than Fiction

Synopsis: IRS Agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a very boring man with an interesting wristwatch. When he suddenly hears his life being narrated by an unseen author, he is disturbed. When the voice announces his imminent death he is driven to break his routine and search for the meaning in his life and the unseen author intent on killing him.

The idea that life begins once you accept that you are going to die is an old one. It's a central element of the philosophies of many religions and, indeed, many films. Most recently, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain tackled this idea in an esoteric and fantastical way. Stranger Than Fiction takes the fantastica path, but avoids the esoteric and instead grounds the idea in a single character. Harold Crick hasn't lived a day of his life. He counts the number of times he brushes his teeth, he never deviates from his schedule, he does nothing except exist. But when Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) starts narrating his life and announces that he's going to die, he changes and starts to live. Only because suddenly he desires something: to live. And because this is a comedy, his living involves a number of beautifully described, awkward and tentative steps into the unfamiliar.

He is auditing Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker whom he can't help but ogle. And he pursues her. The question of whether or not he's going to get her is a determining factor in whether or not he can see the story he's in as a comedy or a tragedy. And the beauty of the film is that it could honestly go either way. You can laugh in a tragedy too but someone always ends up dying.

Our guide to the rules of storytelling in the film is Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). He helps Harold deconstruct his own life, to discover what kind of story he is a character in. And in so doing, gives us, the audience, cues to analyse the film. It's a fine point to judge the film on, as it effectively tells you what kind of story it could be, and hence what kind of reaction is expected of you. It's never patronising though, unlike another element of the film.

As with his previous effort, the failed experiment Stay, Forster can't keep his hands out of the special effects toybox. If the use of effects were innovative, it wouldn't be so bad. But since what results looks like little more than a weak knockoff of  the more celebrated visuals found in Fight Club, it's just annoying. Little displays show the number of brushstrokes Harold commits to each tooth. But so does Eiffel's narration. They show how many steps he takes. As does the narration. It's distracting and reduces the pathos of each scene. Thankfully the effects quickly fall away and we're left with a well-told story that features superb performances, especially from Ferrell. He's the straight man here, and he's brilliant. Especially towards the end, as he faces the reality of death, he draws so much out of the scenes, it's wonderful and touching. A story about itself risks disappearing into itself. But this one doesn't. It connects and it's beautiful.

 

 

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