The review Text copyright Filmverdict 2006. Any film stills are copyright of their respective owners. Used without permission, sorry!
The intriguing premise was what attracted me to this new film by Marc Forster. The story is about a regular guy (Will Ferrell) who starts hearing his life being narrated by an unknown woman. One day she says that he's about to die (but doesn't say how), so he has to go about trying to find out who the narrator is and avoid his own death. The film takes the form of a low-key comedy, and is scattered with a few mild laughs but nothing particularly hilarious. Ferrell is very good though, importantly making his character very likeable despite the fact he's rather boring. It turns out his narrator is an author with writer's block (Emma Thompson) who can't decide how to kill her main character, who happens to be Ferrell, unbeknownst to her. We are introduced to Emma Thompson's character quite early on which I though was a mistake, as I think it would have worked better if we only find out who the narrator is when Ferrell's character does. Thompson is good enough, but most of her scenes before the end feel a bit superfluous and disrupt the flow. When the film focuses on Ferrell, it's excellent. There are some very nice visual touches indicating the inner workings of his mind (he thinks of everything in terms of numbers) and an endearing romance develops between him and Maggie Gyllenhaal, although the age difference and sheer unlikelihood of it distracted me somewhat. But with an uplifting ending and Dustin Hoffman providing enjoyable support, Stranger than Fiction is worth seeing.
The summary
4 stars is perhaps generous, but Stranger than Fiction is refreshingly unusual and entertaining.
