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.
Comment
12/30/06
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
72
%
Tomatometer
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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.
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.... [More]
Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman
Director: Marc Forster
Reviews for Stranger Than Fiction
Top CriticA sharply clever script, witty direction and terrific performances across the board.
10/28/06
It might be Charlie Kaufman lite, but this is a great date movie for the discerning - smart, ingenious and heartwarming.
11/29/06
Top CriticInstead 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.
11/30/06
Top CriticBrilliantly written, thoughtful and frequently hilarious comedy with impressive direction and terrific performances from the entire cast.
10/28/06
The film struggles under its increasingly weighty pretensions to literary credibility and even tragic status, stumbling towards an unconvincing and cloying conclusion.
10/28/06
Top CriticThe 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.
09/22/07
Until this unsatisfying ending, however, the movie flows exactly right.
11/12/06
It's a clever script with some very sweet moments, and an inspiring message. I liked it!
11/13/06
Most of the movie's comedy falls very flat. Another director might have masked the inadequacy of the script in a way to make the enterprise marginally fun, but [Marc] Forster just didn't have the goofy flair required.
11/09/06
A striking implosion of incongruent themes.
11/06/06
Unlike the brainier Kaufman stories, it's easy to understand how matters are proceeding here without an air of pretentiousness.
11/24/06
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.
12/01/06
Forster has a strong eye for detail and a keen visual sense.
11/10/06
Arguably one of Ferrell's finest two hours on film,
11/21/06
It takes a great premise and runs with it, neither wasting opportunities nor going off on tangents. It features strong work from both the main and supporting actors, and manages seamlessly to incorporate both humor and poignancy.
11/06/06
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.
11/10/06
A fresh and original fantasy love story entertainment that will arouse all the literary DNA we possess.
11/05/06
Stranger Than Fiction promises a heady experience, but it ultimately heads for the heart instead.
11/10/06
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.
03/06/07
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