Stranger Than Fiction

* * * * *

“Mr. Crick, I think I like you.”

Doesn’t sound like much of a line does it? But, in the new film by Marc Forester (Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland) this line becomes one of those - “You...you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”- lines we remember forever. Stranger Than Fiction is less the quirky comedy it’s being advertised as, and more the meaningful moral tale that harkens back to predecessors like; It’s A Wonderful Life, The Truman Show and The Apartment. Like these films, Fiction will have you laughing at the appropriate points, but more with the irony of those close-to-home truths than with cleverly written gags.

Harold Crick (Will Farrell), an IRS auditor, awakes one morning to discover an unseen voice, seemingly omniscient and with some control of the routine monotony he considers his life. Crick’s newest audit, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhall), proprietor of a small bakery, and retro-revolutionary, decides exactly how much tax she will pay based on her approval of the governments expenditures. This sets up immediate conflict between the forces of the predictable and the strength of the unpredictable.

What should be a simple audit turns into more as the voice in Harold’s life begins to promote changes. The voice is the voice of author Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who is working on her newest novel that just happens to run concurrent to the real life of Harold Crick. Somehow, a juxtapositional quirk of parallel universe dynamics has placed these two events together. This is not good thing and the voice soon reveals Harold’s death is not just immanent but looming. Harold’s shrink advises him to seek out Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a professor of literature. Convinced that Crick is not a lunatic, Hilbert agrees to help and begins a search to discover what living author could be considered. For Harold’s part he must log daily events to determine whether he is in a comedy or a tragedy.

Enamored with Ana, Harold logs his contact with her and soon concludes that he‘s in a tragedy. When romance sparks between the two, Crick decides he’s in a comedy. At this point Crick and Hilbert learn the voice belongs to world renown author Kay Eiffel and she always kills her main character. Crick searches her out, and soon author and character come face to face. With a less talented cast this story would have come apart right here, but Emma Thompson gears it up and the story moves impressively into the last act.

One of the jewels of the film is that there is never any lame attempt to examine this fracture in reality. The story simply reveals a character who must change in order to live. Little does Harold Crick know, it’s this revelation that is the heart of the story. At one point, when Hilbert feels that nothing can be done to avoid Cricks impending end, he tells Crick to go out and enjoy what’s left of his life. “Eat as many pancakes as you like.” he says. Harold thinks this is a ridiculous thing to say until Hilbert reminds him that the point is not pancakes or life, but whether the life being lived is less fulfilling than the pancakes that could be eaten. Stranger Than Fiction will become a see-over film that people will want to see again and again. The performances are stellar, the writing is artful and clear, the direction and production values are surprising and interesting, and there seems no way to avoid liking Mr. Crick.