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The Garden Party

Stranger than Fiction (film)

17 years ago

Will Ferrell is excellent in this film and a supporting cast of Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, and Maggie Ghyllenhaal doesn't hurt him a bit. It's a "comedy" but a dark one. The premise is that Emma Thompson is writing a novel about an IRS agent named Harold Crick and he begins to hear the narrative in his head and when he hears her say he has to die at the end of novel--well, that's how the plot gets rolling.

I thought the film started slow but once Harold was determined to save his own life, the pace picked up. I always think of Ferrell as a bit clownish--think Talledega Nights, for example--but here he achieves a depth of emotion I don't think I've encountered in him before. He changes his life, which I won't spoil with details, and the lives of those around him. Nice. Emma Thompson is wonderfully dotty, Maggie G looks great despite a tattoo I found continutally distracting but it was essential to her character, Dustin Hoffman cartooned English professors in a way I found ruefully apt, and Queen Latifah is woefully underused. There's a blurring of the line between life and literature that I welcomed as a postmodern riff on the intermingling of life and art in the imagination. I think that's how it is all the time.

This film won't knock your socks off, but there is a lot to chew on, in particular the sense that a conventional life can be fraught with surprises.

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Comments (6)

Pidge
Original Author
17 years ago
bumpety-bump-bump-bump
lilod
17 years ago
Pidge
I just saw this review, sound interesting. I am not a movie goer, it's a 45 mile round trip to one theater,, 90 miles to the other one, so I wait until they come out on DVD and get them free from the video store - or Joann gets them free, she works there once a week.
This one will likely go onto DVD pretty fast, it's not a block-buster.
Curious that "Crash" went to DVD really fast and then ended up getting an Academy Award.
It was already in the $1.00 rack at the video store and after the Oscars suddenly was hard to get hold of. Go figure
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sheila
17 years ago
Pidge, I will see this if it comes to our movie house because I've heard good things about it and I like all of the actors.
agnespuffin
17 years ago
Pidge, I usually read your reviews, but I am like Lilo, I am not a movie goer. So therefore, I can't make a comment about them. I think the last movie we saw was Star Wars or maybe one of the Indiana Jones series. Before then, it would be w-a-a-ayy back in the Dark Ages before TV. I'm a reader by nature. Movies don't allow me to use my imagination as much as I like. I get critical and want to change the script. Even as a teenager, except for dates, if I were given the choice between a new book and a movie, I would take the book. But there weren't many things that could substitute for a movie on a date!
PB
User
17 years ago
Pidge, another here that seldom gets to the movies but appreciates your reviews. Some of us just check in and post infrequently so letting a thread stay up for a few days is just fine. I have never cared much for Will Farrel but Dustin Hoffman is a favorite. This is one I will watch for with your review in mind.
Pidge
Original Author
17 years ago
Folks, I bumped this one down and also the Babel one because I didn't think my movie talk mattered very much to most people. From what I am reading here, it does seem that very few people actually go to a movie theater for a film (I cannot imagine why because that is the BEST if not the only way to see a film). So by the time most folks get around to these films, they are already on DVD and all the excitement of a new film is long gone. However, if you want to read them even if you don't comment, I'll keep posting them and will leave them up until they die their own natural death.

BTW, while this dark comedy is pretty good, Babel is the better and more complex film. I do think, however, that STF is a good showcase for some very fine actors, and Will Ferrell is better here than I have ever seen him.

BTW#2, I also like books. Reading them and talking about them is my profession, after all. It's just that films are an art form that draws me like a moth to a flame. Tomorrow is Happy Feet with a five-year-old grandson.

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