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Movies / Upcoming / Stranger Than Fiction
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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21 - 40 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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A concept film, but wow, what a concept!

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
01/13/07
Uri Lessing
Uri Lessing
eFilmCritic.com

Consegue desenvolver sua história de forma sempre interessante e com uma sensibilidade que certamente surpreenderá aqueles que forem ao cinema esperando assistir a uma comédia (algo que este longa não é).

Full Review Source: Cinema em Cena | comment Comment
01/11/07
Pablo Villaca
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena

[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

Screenwriter Zach Helm's comedy has some quirky points, but it's very sugary and sentimental, and feeble compared to the work of those who have done the same sort of thing better: Woody Allen or Charlie Kaufman.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
12/30/06
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

When it flies, it soars. But it develops leaden feet as it spins over into a convoluted, overly long wind down. This is an intelligent, engaging film that gets it right, for the most part, before ultimately capitulating to the demands of Hollywood.

Full Review Source: culturevulture.net | comment Comment
12/30/06
Les Wright
Les Wright
culturevulture.net

Ferrell breaks the mold in this pleasantly surprising, terrific film.

Full Review Source: cinemaobsession.com | comment Comment
12/22/06
Jeff Otto
Jeff Otto
cinemaobsession.com

Stranger than Fiction is more high-concept than high-brow; a comedy heavy on gimmick that falls a little short of cunning.

Full Review Source: Peterborough This Week | comment Comment
12/06/06
Mike Sage
Mike Sage
Peterborough This Week

Give Ferrell as many roles like this as he can possibly handle.

Full Review Source: Norman Transcript | comment Comment
12/04/06
Jim Chastain
Jim Chastain
Norman Transcript

Never really makes sense of its metafictional conceit, but at least Marc Foster refuses to accept the current Hollywood conventional wisdom that movie comedies should be as visually bland as TV sitcoms.

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
12/01/06
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Stranger Than Fiction is not clever enough to reach Adaptation's upscale audiences or funny or entertaining enough for more mass consumption.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
12/01/06
Doris Toumarkine
Doris Toumarkine
Film Journal International

Instead of finishing with a bang it peters out, but this existential yarn is still fresh and funny enough to justify taking two hours out of your life.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
11/30/06
Stella Papamichael
Stella Papamichael
BBC

It might be Charlie Kaufman lite, but this is a great date movie for the discerning - smart, ingenious and heartwarming.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
11/29/06
Ian Freer
Ian Freer
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It may not be a masterpiece like [the writer's] new novel, but it's an entertaining story.

Full Review Source: TheMovieChicks.com | comment Comment
11/27/06
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com

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

The movie's vigorous efforts to channel Charlie Kaufman and Andrew Niccol, leave it looking rather familiar, not strange at all.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
11/25/06
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

In many ways, Harold does not come across as a real character. He is more of a conceit than anything, defined entirely by quirky character traits, rather than simple humanity.

Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | comment Comment
11/25/06
James Kendrick
James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk

An amusing little quirky vehicle that not only entertains, but actually contains a few thought provoking scenes.

Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs | comment Comment
11/25/06
Scott Nash
Scott Nash
Three Movie Buffs

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

Arguably one of Ferrell's finest two hours on film,

Full Review Source: Spectrum (St. George, Utah) | comment Comment
11/21/06
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

Ultimately it's about fully embracing life rather than staying locked in our habits and comfort zones, hardly a new moral to the story in the history of cinema, but Stranger Than Fiction brings vitality to the shopworn message.

Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema | comment Comment
11/21/06
Mark Pfeiffer
Mark Pfeiffer
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
 
 
21 - 40 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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