Review of Stranger Than Fiction (2006) by Dawdlingpoet — 20 Nov 2021

It probably sounds pretty strange and indeed it is a fairly strange film, not an average run of the mill romantic movie or comedy and its not entirely dramatic I'd say, its one of those quirky movies that has a story you probably haven't really seen before. I thought it worked well on screen and it makes you think, in a philosophical way. The reaction when his narrator finds out that her character is in fact a real human being, well its as you might expect, it comes as quite a shock! but the bottom line is that, as Jules warned Harold, the narrator and author Karen Eiffel (played by Emma Thomson) has never ended a single story without her main character being killed off, so can Harold survive the story? thats the full storyline and no I'm not going to tell you if he does or not. The main question that this movie will make you wonder is whether your really in control your life and it of course makes you think that you never know when your last day may be, like is said in the film, everyone dies sometime, you can't avoid death and so should get the most out of life while you can, that sort of thing, although it isn't too 'preach-y' really, the issues are brought across in a good way I thought. I also though that the characterisation with Harold particularly, was very good. You really do feel quite attached to and sorry for him as the movie goes on and your really left hoping for the best for him and cheering him on, or at least I did anyway.

This isn't a movie to sit down and watch as a purely entertainment laugh a minute sort of comedy movie, like I'd already said but it still works very well I thought. I'm not really sure that its the kind of movie you'd want to watch very often but its definately worth renting at least, I've always been interested in movies with original stories and this is one of the better ones! (infact the story is his story, if you know what I mean). In the end, he may be brought across at the start of the movie as a rather boring middle-aged tax man, who doesn't do much and lives a very bland day to day existence, but you really do end up feeling for him and cheering him on and the movie itself I certainly wouldn't describe as bland. The acting is done very well in this movie, any movie where you feel yourself really becoming attached to a character (especially one that is originally portrayed as being so bland and boring) and rooting for a good ending for them, is a movie where the character portrayal works effectively and this is definately the case. I have to say, I haven't watched Ferrells other comedy movies so I guess I didn't have any presumptions of what he'd be like (though I do know of the other comedy movies he's appeared in) but I did think he was a good choice to play tax man Harold. This is a great movie to watch if you want to see something different. The movies benefits greatly by its cast of well established actors and actreses including of course Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah, another comedy actress who plays the author Karen's assistant, just don't let the comedy actor and actress' names confuse you into thinking that this is a film with major laughs around every corner. Well worth renting or at least watching once.