RojoStranger then Fiction
Not much.
This is what I expected from “Stranger than Fiction”. Will Ferrell trying to prove he has range, Dustin Hoffman in yet another movie (I swear her is one of the hardest working actors around) Emma Thompson is quick to annoy, and Queen Latifah, well I can take her or leave her like I could take or leave hash cake.
But I was wrong.
The plot I feel is quirky (something I have a deep enamour for), a deep concept that really isn’t, one may say an illusion of deepness, all you have to do like most movies is overlook the absurdity of the premise. A man, a boring man, the world most boring man begins to hear his life being narrated by a tailored English woman, yet he is the only one who can hear this. Now if someone said they suffered from this malediction I would suggest that that are crazy, it is scenes that deal with this that begin to make the film what it is. You begin to accept the story and you begin to allow it to take you over.
Add a love interest (Maggie Gyllenhaal) but explain her relevance to the movie within the movie, who does that and gets away with it? Zach Helm (writer) and Marc Foster (director: Stay, Monsters Ball) that’s who.
Ferrell is brilliant in a performance that “screams it doesn’t matter what I do I’m a funny guy”. But he’s funny in a very un-Frank-the-tank type way. I felt for his character, I wanted him to live his life and as he realises that his death is immanent he begin to take his live by the balls and twist them it is so invigorating I found myself watching this movie again and again with a different friend every time.
Over all this is a gem of a movie not to say it’s sans cheese, but the cheese here is camembert not blue. A refreshing film that confirmed to me that Ferrell is heading into the realms of Jim Carey, (who is heading into the realms of Peter Sellers.)
7/10
Film & TV on DVD