STRANGER THAN FICTION Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Columbia Pictures
Grade: B+
Directed by: Marc Forster
Written By: Zach Helm
Cast: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen
Latifah, Emma Thompson
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 11/11/06
Opens: November 10, 2006 Fatalists believe that our lives are planned out for us. There is little we can do to change things. Existentialists say, on the other hand, that by acting, we make choices and are responsible for the outcomes. With the movie “Stranger Than Fiction,” director Marc Forster, working with Zach Helm’s script, splits the difference. Their chief character, Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), acts not according to God’s plan, but according a scheme mapped out by a literary author. Whatever Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) types, that’s what happens. If Ms. Eiffel writes, “Harold Crick brushes his teeth, counting every stroke,” that’s what Harold Crick does. Eiffel holds the power of life and death over her principal character, and given that her best novels have all featured the deaths of their heroes, Harold doesn’t have a chance. Or does he? Maybe, existentialists would say, he can break the power of fate and, with great effort, make changes in his routine that would allow this friendless agent for the Internal Revenue Service not only to survive but to thrive–with love to boot. Unlike Larry Charles’s mean-spirited and politically reactionary comedy “Borat,” “Stranger Than Fiction” is sweet, even sentimental in the best way. Will Ferrell is more Steve Martin than Sacha Baron Cohen, which is all to the good. He does not go over the top, he is not an idiot, he is not even a non-conformist. Quite the contrary: he’s as straight a fellow as can be imagined, brushing his teeth in exactly the same way each morning, chomping on a green apple on the way to the bus, which he always catches just on time. His fellow workers at the IRS half-jokingly ask him to multiple figures like 403 x 1208, which Harold can do in his head. But this talent does not make him happy. Along comes a writer who treats him as her hero, but that’s a two-edged sword. On the one hand, she is a tragedian, determined to kill him in the end. On the other, his awareness that he is a character in her book leads him to change his life for the better, a plan which may not only save his life but grant him a woman’s love--which he so sorely needs. The oddball personalities in this delightful, well-balanced and even credible comedy include Dustin Hoffman as Professor Jules Hilbert, a man whom Crick visits when a psychiatrist (Linda Hunt) is unable to help. Hilbert sees Crick’s dilemma according to basic theories of fiction writing, ultimately giving him the tools to change. For her part, Emma Thompson’s character, the writer Kay Eiffel, is so afflicted with writers’ block that she contemplates suicide, but is helped by her assistant Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), who has a reputation for getting writers back in the groove. Eiffel is a chain smoker. Hilbert drinks more coffee daily than Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Crick is a compulsive counter. Best of all Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Ana, a baker who dropped out of Harvard Law School, toys with the dangerous eccentricity of paying only a percentage of her taxes, thinking that whatever she hands over to Uncle Sam will go to provide housing for the poor rather than missiles for this or that axis. Gyllenhaal, whose real-life wisdom includes her choice of Brooklyn, New York as her principal residence, has never been sexier, and Ferrell has never before been as heartwarming. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
