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December 1, 2006 > Arts & Entertainment > Fiction delivers the laughs

Fiction delivers the laughs

By Jackie Ammons | Thresher staff

Stranger Than Fiction is quite strange — but in an interesting, intriguing and funny way.

The movie is not a masterpiece or a classic, but it does make viewers think and, most importantly, laugh. The plot is based on a device: Author Kay Eiffel (Love Actually’s Emma Thompson) is writing a book. As she types, Harold Crik (Elf’s Will Ferrell) can hear her voice in his head. Eiffel unknowingly holds the fate of IRS auditor Crik in her hands and at the mercy of her typewriter: Her words determine Crik’s actions and hold control over his fate. When she writes that Crik brushes 78 times, Crik brushes 78 times — he is forced to do whatever Eiffel commands while listening to her lilting British voice narrate his life. However, Eiffel decides she needs to stir up some interest in her novel and begins to plan Crik’s death.

To figure out the identity of the voice in his head and to avoid his foreshadowed doom, Harold seeks the help of English professor and local lifeguard Jules Hilbert (The Graduate’s Dustin Hoffman).

Such an odd plotline leads the viewer to anticipate that other aspects of the movie will also be odd and misplaced. They are, and pleasingly so.

Choosing Ferrell to play a serious part was a gamble. Luckily, it paid off. For once, Ferrell manages to not seem obnoxious and over-the-top — he actually shows glimpses of serious acting talent. Ferrell sticks to tasteful and appropriate humor and even shows some serious emotion, evoking memories of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show: Crik cries convincingly when Eiffel reveals that she intends to let him die the next day.

The rest of the cast is stellar as well. Thompson convincingly plays her part as an eccentric author. The veteran Hoffman adds a few laughs to the movie as a literature professor and faculty lifeguard who encourages the elderly to stay afloat at the local pool. Maggie Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) performs adequately as Ferrell’s adorable, quirky girlfriend, and Queen Latifah (Chicago) plays an encouraging but smug writer’s assistant.

The interesting screenplay enables Ferrell to take a shot at a serious acting role. The only incongruity is in the romantic storyline — Ferrell and Gyllenhaal make an unconvincing couple. Ferrell, an awkward IRS agent, seems out of place with Gyllenhaal, a carefree, tattoo-bearing baker.

The soundtrack lends yet another favor to the film. The steady rhythms of an acoustic guitar parallel the pace of Harold’s life and ironically belie his impending death.

Stranger Than Fiction won’t win Best Picture, and it won’t become a cult classic. But the movie will deliver what moviegoers crave the most — entertainment.

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