Stranger Than Fiction

Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrell) is a rather boring man. He is an IRS auditor, who lives alone, and is very meticulous. He wakes, eats, and sleeps at the exact same time every day. He counts the strokes as he brushes his teeth and counts the steps as he walks. He is moving through this rather pointless life when suddenly, as he is brushing his teeth, he hears a female voice narrating his life. He first thinks someone near him is talking, but soon figures out it’s in his head, and it disturbs him since he can’t concentrate on the numbers he really cares about. But it really gets to him when the narrator, after a few days of this, says “little did he know” that his imminent death was fast approaching.

At this point, Harold first goes to a psychiatrist, who as would be expected, tells him he has mental problems. He insists that he does not, that he is somehow stuck in a story. In exasperation, the therapist tells him that perhaps then he should see a literature professor, not a therapist. Harold, of course, takes her advice,

The literature professor , played superbly by Dustin Hoffman, is wonderful. He takes Harold seriously, and makes up a list of ten questions to try to help him. “Have you had any gifts left for you – chocolate, wooden horses. …” “Do you have any body parts that aren’t your own?” “Are you king of anything?” Harold, exasperated, asks why he is asking questions that seem to have nothing to do with his situation. Hoffman replies that it’s a process of elimination, that he is trying to determine what stories Harold is not in, and has now ruled out numerous Greek works, fairy tales, Hamlet, and Frankenstein. By sessions end, he tells Harold that he must figure out whether he is in a tragedy or comedy, and Harold, true to form, keeps notebook, where he tallies the numbers of events that would make him conclude “tragedy” vs. those that would make him conclude “comedy.”

Meanwhile, write Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson, who also gives a great performance) is suffering from writers block. She has been working for years on her new novel Death and Taxes, but is stuck. She is known for always killing off her main character in the end, but is unsure how best to kill off Harold.

This is a delightful movie on several levels. I love works that mingle fiction and reality (for example, I like Jasper Fforde’s novels), and Stranger Than Fiction does a good job at this, playing with literary conventions (and with literary figures – both authors and academics). It also features a rather sweet romance, as Harold, in the midst of all of his problems, changes his life and becomes attracted to a young woman who he’s supposed to be auditing. This is predictable, perhaps (but then again, it’s predictable that Elizabeth Bennett will fall for Darcy), but no less effective for all of that.

I was pleasantly surprised by Will Ferrell’s performance. He is not a comedian I usually like, and is not in movies that I usually like, often playing characters who are simply dumb and annoying (in movies that are childish and simplistic). But here he does a great job as Harold, both the boring Harold at the start, and the Harold he turns into as he opens up. And of course, as I said above, Hoffman and Thompson give great performances, as expected.

The movie is well edited and well directed. Unlike so many movies that seem to go on too long, this seemed to strike the right balance – including all it needed to seem complete but not feeling padded anywhere.

In the end, it all works, though there never is any explanation of the whys of all of this (which is all for the best, since any such explanation would probably be rather silly). Just take the situation for what it is, and enjoy.

One final note: in a year that’s had very few good SF and fantasy movies, it’s good to find a film I can include on my Hugo ballot. So far, this and V for Vendetta are the only two long works I’ve seen worth consideration.