Finally, a cinematic sendup of the third-person omniscient narrator, said Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times. "It's a victory for English teachers everywhere." In the tradition of movies such as The Truman Show and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction tells a story about telling a story. And like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, Will Ferrell the spastic comedian tries his hand at playing a stiff, serious character. Ferrell is Harold Crick, a lonely and compulsive IRS auditor. One day, he hears the disembodied voice of a woman (Emma Thompson) narrating his every move. It turns out that she is writing about his life, and soon plans to kill him off. Unlike Kaufman's film, Stranger Than Fiction offers "easy-access existentialism," said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. The movie, as written by newcomer Zach Helm, tries too hard to be clever. It should have dispensed with the intricate premise and focused entirely on the heartwarming love story between Harold and Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a leftist baker who refuses to pay her taxes as a form of political protest. Thompson's role as narrator is not just superfluous but a distraction, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. You want to thwack this convoluted film "like a piñata to get at the sweet romantic comedy inside." If there were more kissing scenes and less plot, this movie might be almost perfect.
Rating: PG-13
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