Stranger than Fiction

I am not a fan of Will Ferrell. Actually, I'll take that farther. I don't find Will Ferrell movies funny - probably because he generally plays a character with an IQ that should be a shoe size. That said, I really loved this movie. Despite an unbelievable plot, this is a rare delight - a comedy that explores characters, that lets people act in plausible ways in ridiculous situations, that tempers silly with serious. Sort of like life.

Harold Crick (Farrell) is a dull man with a dull job and a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder who suddenly begins to hear his life narrated by a woman's voice. Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is struggling with the inability to finish her latest novel - she's run out of interesting ways to kill off her characters. Yes, you guessed it, Kay is Harold's narrator and yes, she's going to kill him.

As silly as this sounds, it works because you come to like Harold. No really. As Harold tries to foil the voice by changing his habits, he starts to become a real person. Will Ferrell imparts this sad, strange man with such innocence and sweetness you want to adopt him. Add Dustin Hoffman as the literary expert and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the unlikely love interest and this becomes a touching story about making a life. But all Kay's main characters die. Sort of like life.

Check out the official website here. (PS- an actually fun website!)