Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

You will know exactly what the title of this review means when you choose to see this movie. My review title is THE climax of the movie. The absolute point of no return. And it has all to do with simple writer's block. Now you still dont know anything and that's the way it should be, because this story deserves to be discovered without knowing exactly what is going to happpen. It enhances the fun a lot. I have seen it over 10 times now and I still enjoy it to the fullest. Never understood why little children want to hear the same fairytale stories again and again, till I noticed myself that some movies just enchant me that much that I just can't get enough of them.This movie is really heartwarming. But it is slow. I love that, but some dont. And this gem is heavily relying on dialogue and plot. Those who like reading books might be especially interested. Those who are more interested in the intelligent arthouse films will probably adore this gem as well. But those longing for a simple straight comedy might not understand the subtle humor and find it boring. I cant guarantee you will like this movie, but I can guarantee you that this movie is special because of it's story. Really special. This story is clever, yet simple and heartwarming simultaneously. I had never seen anything like it. When I will tell you that it is about a man called Harold Crick whose destiny is totally controlled by a writer, it might sound awfully silly. It is silly, but portrayed magnificently by Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. You just gotta see it to believe it. The story is about Will Ferrel who is playing a hilariously boring tax editor. Suddenly he starts hearing a woman's voice in his head. He fears he is losing his mind. But after some research he finds out he is a character in Emma Thompsons new novel. And everything she writes, starts happening to him. Sounds bizarre. Might seem childish. But it is honestly the best script I have seen in years. And brilliantly directed by director Marc Foster, known from World War Z (Brad Pitt), Quantum Solace (James Bond), Finding Neverland (Johnny Depp), Monsters Ball (Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry) and The Kite Runner. This director has made the most varied choices in movie styles amongst all the directors I know. He can make action, comedy, drama or everything in between. The man has got the talent to create any world for any audience with total credibility and wonderful imagination. Remember that name! Marc Foster.Acting is always paramount. However good a story might be, without good acting the story wont be credible. Fortunately it is because of a tremendous cast: Will Ferrel as well as Emma Thompson play one of the best roles of their carreers. They are just to die for. Will Ferrell usually is associated with blunt teen comedies, being dressed up as an elf or something. Now he is acting seriously. Well on the edge of serious and funny. Emma Thompson is almost unrecognizable as an writer in despair, bordering on psychosis. Supporting roles by Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman, how much better can it get?I love this movie. I truly love it. It stimulates my thinking, it caresses my solitude, it lifts me up when I am down. I just feel wonderful after seeing it again and again...

Multiple viewers have stated that they turned-off the movie after the first 30 minutes, the second 30 minutes is where characters start to shine. We really need to get to the third act, that is where the meat is and the actors shine in their roles. I have watched and re- watched this movie over the years since release (sometimes starting at minute 24, the entrance of Dustin Hoffmans character).It was ahead of its time with the integration of H.U.D.-like CGI elements to explain our main character's inner monologue.Will Ferrel is evocative as becomes Harold Crick. The relationships in no way feel forced for developing in under two hours, the characters are real, as are the emotions they feel for us by the actors.Give the movie a chance it should not disappoint.*And its a got a great soundtrack that adds to without distracting from the movie.

I almost fell asleep. The plot is so depressing and the linking of the watch makes no sense at all. And then it also involves love which adds to the dullness. Just another IMDb movie with artificially bumped up ratings. Don't watch unless you want to feel down for one and half hours long.

If you know my style, ambiguous movies are always a scream for me. A film with so much subtext and inner symbolism gives me a lot to enjoy while dissecting and interpreting at different angles. The oeuvre of David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowski, Stanley Kubrick, and even Charlie Kaufman all live up to this notion, offering masterpiece after masterpiece.However, there are some hackneyed films and filmmakers that shamelessly try to replicate that sort of style. Where they make a story buried in subtext and "mind-twisties" without any grace or intelligence to make it all work. A movie that thinks its soooooo smart with the subtext but winds up obvious and pretentious, and offers a unique universe that is barely explored beyond plot mechanics that make no f-ing sense. And said hackneyed filmmakers is Marc Forster and screenwriter Zach Helm, and said film is STRANGER THAN FICTION, a stupid, bland, pretentious mockery of a Charlie Kaufman film without any understanding of what makes them great in the first place. It's literally ADAPTATION for morons.Will Ferrel stars as a mediocre IRS agent living a normal life until a narration explains his everyday life like he lives in a novel. See, his whole life is orchestrated by this narrator, a real life author who makes great stories about troubled people. He suddenly hears her, and needs to find the narrator in person in order to understand his true fate.Sounds interesting, but that's about it. There's literally nothing else underneath that beyond "boy this sounds trippy, yo!" There's no underlying subtext about the nature of authorship, no impressive visuals or symbolism, or any depth of this world beyond the surface level. All it does is illustrate how everyone's lives are like stories right down to the minute plot progression and arcs as if we never took 9th Grade English class! Even then, it's used no more than a guy loosening up, finding his fun inner self, and get laid to a spunky and rebellious girl in the end. Because WE HAVEN'T SEEN THAT ENOUGH ALREADY! This is another problem: the film tells waaaay too much of what should be shown. Subtext is way too much the text in this movie, in which characters blurt out what we should interpret on our own. Here's an example: one of the psychiatrists (played by a bored Dustin Hoffman, no doubt) suggest that this "real story" could either be a tragedy or a comedy. So Ferrell experiments this to aforementioned spunky rebellious girl in a bakery. She tries acting nice to him, but because he's a stereotypical stick in the mud, he rejects unintentionally. She reacted slightly unkindly, to which Ferrell notices. Had the scene end right there, we would've got enough information about whether or not it's tragic or comedic all on our own. But then it keeps going, with Ferrell comically saying "You were being nice and I rejected it. I guess this ends in tragedy." SERIOUSLY?! WHO WROTE THIS? Oh and it doesn't matter since they pork 20 minutes later anyway. Oh well. The whole film is like that, where it constantly holds your hand and expects you to be impressed by its genius. All I'm thinking about is "JUST GET TO THE POINT!" But here is what really blows my horn. The narrator is supposed to be this high-class author who makes poetic movies about lonely man, and there is a certain recurring sequence of event of which they endure that truly makes it "masterful pieces of work" But as I sit there, I realize, "well why does it matter if that event needed to happen to Ferrell and what kind of poetry to his life should be 'profound'?" It's literally a boring life Ferrell's character is living in, and said event wouldn't make a damn difference at all. Its heavily emphasized in great importance that the inevitable event in his life that the narrator is constructing is what makes this "story" work, but I don't see a damn bit of difference at all! Not to spoil, but it makes no sense.Even among the frustrating screenplay, everything else is all smack dab right in the middle of "Not bad but not good" section. The cinematography is uninspired, the actors merely act instead of conveying earned and true emotions, the color palette is drab, and the movie is overall a slapdash of clichés and fake emotional moments. I'm more than certain it has its fans, but I'm still hard-pressed to realize how anyone, who has seen at least ONE drama or ONE mind-bender" in their lives, should like this.