I couldn't find this thread anywhere on the site, so sorry if it already exists. I looked, but did not find. Anyway, Stranger Than Fiction was one of my favourite movies of 2006. I only saw it a couple of days ago, but it immediately struck a cord in me and I had to come on here and express my feelings. It is dark, quirky, funny and, at times, surprisingly moving. It is another movie in which Will Ferrell proves is a real actor, not just a comedian. Here, he has taken the road that Adam Sandler took in Punch-Drunk Love, abandoning his stupid, rage-filled characters and taking on something a little more substantial. The only difference between Ferrell and Sandler is that I like all of those stupid characters (like Ron Burgundy from Anchorman or Ricky Bobby from Talledega Nights).

The performances from Ferrell and his supporters (mainly Emma Thompson as the author dictating Harold's life and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a free-thinking, radical bakery owner) are all top notch. Each of the characters relate to Harold in a different way and it is fun to watch how Ferrell plays off of the other actors. He spends most of his time either with Gyllenhaal or with Dustin Hoffman, who plays a literature professor who's main goal is to determine whether or not Harold's life is a comedy or a tragedy.

As I said the movie is funny, but not in your typical way. The comedy is subtle, and it comes from characters and very human things. But like I said, there are touching moments as well. It's a fun little 100 minutes spending time with these people and I am more than glad I did. Obviously from the depth of this review, it's apparent that I am no movie critic and I'm sure there is someone on here who is better qualified to say a few things about the movie, so I invite them to do so. I am simply saying that I really, really liked this movie a lot. It was also nice to see Queen Latifah doing something very different from what you would expect from her.

Anway, if you haven't seen this movie yet, then please do so, It's tremendous fun.


Cheers, Chismeister.

I saw this film wen it was first released and really really really enjoyed this. I would say this is one of the most original movies of 2006 and for a long time. Hoffman was fantastic, Thompson fantastic, Gyllenhall gorgeous and Ferell, i have to say, pretty good.

After seeing this movie, I don't understand why Will Ferrell isn't getting better roles than he he is.  While I enjoyed his outrageous characters on SNL, practically all of his movies have sucked because he's playing three minute sketch comedy characters in ninety minute movies.

Ferrell plays Harold Glick, an IRS auditor who learns that his life is seemingly a story being written by a writer played by Emma Thompson, a story in which he is destined to die.  Dustin Hoffman plays a literary professor who helps Ferrell figure out what's going on in his life.  And Maggie Gyllenhaal plays his new love interest who breaks him out of the routine life he's living.

Unlike Ferrell's other movies, he gets to show his skills as a dramatic actor.  And he was good at it!  He does comedy really well; he just shouldn't do over the top comedy as much.


Phil

Well, here's what I said about it...

I remember seeing the trailers for this one and when I learned it was about a guy who finds himself in the midst of a story and he had to track down the writer of that story before she kills him, I was hooked. It went right to my "must see" list. Right about now, you must be saying, "how can it be on your must see list if you're only just seeing it. It came out on video a few weeks ago." Well, I saw it a few weeks ago, and I'm behind. Sorry.

The gist of the film is you have a guy whose life is so ordered, he does everything exactly the same way every single day right down to the number of brush strokes on his teeth and the number of steps he takes to the bus stop. All this changes when he starts hearing a woman's voice in his head narrating his life. He is confused and finds this voice knows more about his life than he does and tells about it with a better vocabulary than he possesses. Once he knows the voice knows what it is talking about, she tells hm he is going to die soon. This gets his attention.

The writer behind all this is one with writer's block. She has been working on this novel for ten years and can't bring herself to finish it. She intends to kill her main character, but cannot come up with a clever or reasonable way to do it. This leads her publisher to send her an assistant to get her on track and lead her to finish her novel.

This is a very funny, serious, and moving film that really defies genre placement beyond just drama. The characters are very believable and the plot both real and fantasical. When we reach our inevitable end, we know our main character of Harold Krick so well that we love and respect him like he does actually exist. He is surrounded by a small set of supporting characters who only serve to define him more clearly and more completely...we even seem to have a wristwatch with personality.

This is an incredible film and places itself among some of the best I've seen. I thoroughly enjoyed it.