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Stranger Than Fiction

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Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

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Reviews Counted:165

Fresh:119

Rotten:46

Average Rating:6.8/10

Consensus: A fun, whimsical tale about about an office drone trying to save his life from his narrator. The cast obviously is having a blast with the script, but Stranger Than Fiction's tidy lessons make this metaphysical movie feel like Charlie Kaufman-lite.

Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins

Genre: Comedies

US Box Office: $40,137,776

Synopsis: One morning, a seemingly average and generally solitary IRS agent named Harold Crick begins to hear a female voice narrating his every action, thought and feeling in alarmingly precise detail.... One morning, a seemingly average and generally solitary IRS agent named Harold Crick begins to hear a female voice narrating his every action, thought and feeling in alarmingly precise detail. Harold's carefully controlled life is turned upside down by this narration only he can hear, and when the voice declares that Harold Crick is facing imminent death, he realizes he must find out who is writing his story and persuade her to change the ending. The voice in Harold's head turns out to be the once celebrated, but now nearly forgotten, novelist Karen "Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is struggling to find an ending for what might be her best book. Her only remaining challenge is to figure out a way to kill her main character, but little does she know that Harold Crick is alive and well and inexplicably aware of her words and her plans for him. To make matters worse, Kay's publisher has dispatched a hard-nosed "assistant," Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), to force Kay to finish her novel and finish off Harold Crick. Desperate to take control of his destiny and avoid an untimely demise, Harold seeks help from a literary theorist named Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests that Harold might be able to change his fate by turning his story from a tragedy into a comedy. Professor Hilbert suggests that Harold try to follow one of comedy's most elemental formulas: a love story between two people who hate each other. His suggestion leads Harold to initiate an unlikely romance with a free-spirited baker named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). As Harold experiences true love and true life for the first time, he becomes convinced that he has escaped his fate, as his story seems to be taking on all the trappings of a comedy in which he will not, and cannot, die. But Harold is unaware that in a Karen Eiffel tragedy, the lead characters always die at exactly the moment when they have the most to live for. Harold and Kay find themselves in unexplored territory as each must weigh the value of a single human existence against what might just be an immortal work of art: a novel about life and death -- and taxes. --© Sony Pictures [More]

Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman

Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Tony Hale, Queen Latifah, Kristin Chenoweth

Director: Marc Forster

Director: Marc Forster
Producer: Lindsay Doran, Aubrey Henderson, Jim Miller, Brittany Daniel
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment

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Reviews for Stranger Than Fiction

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1 - 20 (sorted by comments; Australian critics are listed first)
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Full Review Source: In Film Australia | comment Comment
02/14/07
In Film Australia
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Ferrell rules in this film. I take back my words of prejudice. This is the smartest film in town.

Full Review Source: Sydney Morning Herald | comment Comment
01/26/07
Paul Byrnes
Paul Byrnes
Sydney Morning Herald
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Writer's block has never been so entertaining.

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
01/25/07
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Finally, a Charlie Kaufman movie for people who are too stupid to understand Charlie Kaufman movies.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly | comment 12 Comments
11/14/06
Sean Burns
Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

A fantasy, so it's not obligated to be logical, but it should at least have internal logic and follow its own set of rules. A failure to do so untethers the film.

Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment 4 Comments
11/09/06
Peter Canavese
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

The link between comedy and tragedy is closer than Ferrell believes but the line isn't as clever as it should be and not nearly as profound as it believes it is.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment 3 Comments
11/09/06
Erik Childress
Erik Childress
eFilmCritic.com

There's no joy in seeing Ferrell play an office drone, and the life lessons he learns are of the "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" variety.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment 2 Comments
11/09/06
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune

[J]ust the kind of numbskull movie that critics call 'smart'.

Full Review Source: Blogcritics.org | comment 1 Comment
12/31/06
Alan Dale
Alan Dale
Blogcritics.org

Stranger Than Fiction is the most original comedy of the year, a mind-bending tale with one foot in the real world and the other in pure fiction.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment 1 Comment
11/09/06
Hap Erstein
Hap Erstein
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sure, [Crick's] more a caricature than a fully fleshed out person, but he reacts to his increasingly unbelievable situation with unexpected...believability.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment 1 Comment
11/10/06
Pete Vonder Haar
Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat

A comedy that takes itself too seriously to be truly enjoyed.

Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | comment 1 Comment
11/10/06
Terry Lawson
Terry Lawson
Detroit Free Press

The film struggles under its increasingly weighty pretensions to literary credibility and even tragic status, stumbling towards an unconvincing and cloying conclusion.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
10/28/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

While Stranger Than Fiction traffics in a bit of darkly funny existential anxiety, it also finds room for romantic fantasy and sentimental uplift.

comment Comment
11/10/06
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Stranger Than Fiction might be film, but it moves like a novel: a literate, unhurried tale marked by softly wrought reflections on the self-made life.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
11/10/06
Amy Biancolli
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle

for all its faults, it blazes new trails in mixing popular entertainment and philosophy, not to mention metaphysics, with enough panache to make it all seem eminently sensible.

Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/25/06
Andrea Chase
Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews

A film well worth seeing and savoring.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
11/15/06
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

Unlike the brainier Kaufman stories, it's easy to understand how matters are proceeding here without an air of pretentiousness.

Full Review Source: Sympatico.ca | comment Comment
11/24/06
Angela Baldassarre
Angela Baldassarre
Sympatico.ca

The place where the film runs into problems is in trying to decide, like Harold, as to whether or not it is a comedy or a tragedy. As we know, comedy sells much better and that's the direction the film leans.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
09/22/07
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

This creative film presents a whimsical story that entertains us while also making us think about our own mortality and what's important in life.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/12/06
Betty Jo Tucker
Betty Jo Tucker
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

If Stranger Than Fiction has a central flaw, it's overly sentimental. Although the story would work better as a tragedy, Forster and Helm can't resist tacking on a mushy love story, involving Crick and combative tax cheat Ana Pascal.

Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | comment Comment
11/10/06
Bill Muller
Bill Muller
Arizona Republic
 
 
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