A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Stranger than Fiction

Date Viewed: 11/12/06

Details:

Will Ferrell

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Emma Thompson

Queen Latifah

Linda Hunt

Dustin Hoffman

Tom Hulce

Director: Marc Forster

Score: +

The Review: A fantasy and comedy that rejuvenates the possibility that mainstream cinema may actually have some life remaining, and some clever ideas.

I'm not a big fan of Will Ferrell, his approach to humor, or his personality. So it was with trepidation I decided to sit though this movie, counterbalanced in part by the substantial star power and my interest in the rest of the cast. Emma Thompson is Kay Eiffel, a popular and critically-acclaimed novelist working on her next book, but who has run into an odd bit of writer's block: she's trying to kill off her main character, but cannot figure out how.

Harold Crick (Ferrell) is her main character (an IRS auditor, hence not well-liked) -- and he also happens to be alive and well and walking around not only the same world, but in the same town as Eiffel is writing. His life is her writing. And while we're watching, he has begun to overhear Eiffel's narrative of his life, as she writes and is planning to bump him off. You can imagine how unnerving this might be. This odd admixture of fiction and apparent reality provides the fascination of this fantasy.

Good supporting characters abound: Gyllenhaal as Crick's developing love interest and auditee, Queen Latifah as Eiffel's publisher's stooge sent to help her overcome writer's block, Hoffman as a local university professor to whom Crick goes to get help figuring out who is writing him ("are you in a comedy or a tragedy?").

(1-Jan-07)

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