RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / On DVD / Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Visit Official Site External Icon
Bookmark and Share

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
72 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

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.

Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.

Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins

Genre: Comedies

Theatrical Release:01-12-2006

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

[See More Credits]

  • Trailers
  • Pictures
  • Trailer
    >
1 of 1

See More Movie Trailers & Pictures

Reviews for Stranger Than Fiction

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

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

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
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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

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

Brilliantly written, thoughtful and frequently hilarious comedy with impressive direction and terrific performances from the entire cast.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
10/28/06
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

A sharply clever script, witty direction and terrific performances across the board.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
10/28/06
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

"Stranger Than Fiction" is a sterile and pedantic comedy that tells much more than it shows.

Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
08/29/09
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

Suggests how cleverness can suffocate people

Full Review Source: CinePassion | comment Comment
08/28/09
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion

Forster lards over his whimsically feeble film with sentimentality.

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
04/23/09
Peter Keough
Peter Keough
Boston Phoenix

Some of Will Ferrell's biggest fans might find it overly tame and subtle, but it's interesting, enjoyable and a revelation to see he can keep his pants on and still entertain.

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
12/03/08
Brian Webster
Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

It could have been great. But it's just okay.

Full Review Source: DVD Review | comment Comment
12/02/08
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
DVD Review

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | comment Comment
11/20/08
Brian Marder
Brian Marder
Hollywood.com

The actors and the filmmakers all take a more restrained approach than you might expect, keeping the humor gentle, and the jokes mostly as literary as the premise.

Full Review Source: NPR.org | comment Comment
10/18/08
Bob Mondello
Bob Mondello
NPR.org

The movie’s unforgivable logical flaws and gummy platitudes don’t sink it...thanks to Ferrell’s fine and humane performance.

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Jonathan Kiefer
Jonathan Kiefer
Sacramento News & Review

Stranger Than Fiction is not a fluff film. Far from it. Literate and engaging, it may parade around in nonsensical clothes, but just scratch the surface and a vast reservoir of post-modern existentialism is revealed.

Full Review Source: BrandonFibbs.com | comment Comment
02/28/08
Brandon Fibbs
Brandon Fibbs
BrandonFibbs.com

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

Though there are enough interesting moments to keep it refreshing, Mr. Helm's script never rises above its conceit to reach the giddy Charlie Kaufman heights to which it aspires.

Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

No es ni una comedia, ni una tragedia, ni una historia de amor, ni una fábula. Es ni más ni menos que una idea original mal desarrollada, que no entretiene lo suficiente y que conduce a ninguna parte.

Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | comment Comment
04/17/07
Enrique Buchichio
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total

Stranger Than Fiction never rises above its eye-catching premise, ending up as nothing more than a great idea with absolutely nowhere to go.

Full Review Source: UGO | comment Comment
03/24/07
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico
UGO

An endearing comedy about the spiritual transformation of a rigid, shy, and lonely I.R.S. agent whose life is upended by forces beyond his control.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
03/06/07
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
all

Latest News for Stranger Than Fiction

November 15, 2007: Box Office Guru Preview: Beowulf Set To Conquer Multiplexes
One animated film will bump another from the number one spot at the North American box office. But the new warrior Beowulf is no B movie but an A-list production from an... More...

November 08, 2007: Box Office Guru Preview: Fred Claus is Coming to Town
Vince Vaughn and Tom Cruise go head to head at the North American box office this weekend with their latest releases. The dodgeball champ goes for holiday laughs with Fred Claus... More...

June 20, 2007: The Next "Bond" Director Has Been Chosen
And it's certainly nobody you'd expect! More...

May 21, 2007: Four Directors Up for the Next "Bond" Flick?
Curious to know who'll be directing the next James Bond flick? Join the club. One source has a short list of potential helmers, all of whom would be pretty ... distinctive. More...

See All

More DVDs

Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
15% 15% The Ugly Truth
98% 98% Up
36% 36% G.I. Joe: The Rise of …
52% 52% The Taking of Pelham 1…
45% 45% Ice Age: Dawn of the D…

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
36% 36% Angels & Demons
68% 68% Funny People
25% 25% Four Christmases
45% 45% Shorts
53% 53% David & Layla

More New Releases…

What’s Hot On RT

Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia

Your first look at the swashbuckler.

Vampires

Vampires

We rank cinema's bloodsuckers.

Avatar

Avatar

The full trailer for Cameron's epic.

2012

2012

12 facts about Emmerich's disaster flick.

Other News

  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Natalie Portman Says Kat Denning Is in Thor Source: MTV
32
  • Disney Restructuring Has Broad Implications Source: Los Angeles Times
10
  • Joel Silver Talks Ninja Assassin, Sgt. Rock, Lobo, and More Source: Collider.com
1
  • Weekly Ketchup: Idris Elba cast in Thor, more Spider-Man 4 rumors
116
  • Idris Elba Joins Thor Source: Hollywood Reporter
112
  • Jackass 3D Coming in 2010? Source: Collider.com
32
  • 6 Reasons 'Twilight' Is Doomed Source: The Wrap
64
  • Forbes Names Hollywood's Most Overpaid Actors Source: Forbes
20
  • Chris Weitz Says He's (Almost) Done with Directing Source: Film School Rejects
26
  • Spider-Man 4 Casting Rumors Multiply Like Rabbits Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily
51
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: New Moon Shatters Records
175
  • Critics Consensus: New Moon Wanes
129
  • Tomatometer Watch: Will Twilight's New Moon Dazzle?
97
  • Total Recall: Star-Crossed Lovers
75
  • Total Recall: John Travolta's Best Movies
69
  • Weekly Ketchup: Idris Elba cast in Thor, more Spider-Man 4 rumors
58
  • Friday Harvest: New Moon, Avatar, and more!
32
  • Critics Consensus: Flee From Ninja Assassin
19
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
12
  • Five Favorite Films With Zombieland Director Ruben Fleischer
4
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
12
  • Eric Bana talks Love the Beast - RT Interview
9
  • Fight Club Sound Designer Reflects on Film's 10th Anniversary
19
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
6
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
15
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus
20
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
8
  • Wolverine Creator Len Wein Talks About the Film
28
  • Gavin Hood Talks Wolverine; Possible Sequel
28
  • Duncan Jones talks Moon, Sam Rockwell, and Mute
14
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • Stranger Than Fiction at Rotten Tomatoes
  • Stranger Than Fiction at IGN
  • Stranger Than Fiction at AskMen

Fresh Links

Featured
RT on YouTube
RT on YouTube External Link

Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.

RT on Twitter
RT on Twitter External Link

Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive | Green Pixels


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.