The film struggles under its increasingly weighty pretensions to literary credibility and even tragic status, stumbling towards an unconvincing and cloying conclusion.
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10/28/06
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Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
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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:Nov 10, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $40,137,776
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
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Reviews for Stranger Than Fiction
[J]ust the kind of numbskull movie that critics call 'smart'.
12/31/06
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.
09/22/07
If Stranger Than Fiction has a central flaw, it's overly sentimental. Although the story would work better as a tragedy, Forster and Helm can't resist tacking on a mushy love story, involving Crick and combative tax cheat Ana Pascal.
11/10/06
Top CriticClick to read the article
11/20/08
Fiction is one large false start, unable to claw out of the pit of its own toxic self-awareness.
11/09/06
Stranger Than Fiction never rises above its eye-catching premise, ending up as nothing more than a great idea with absolutely nowhere to go.
03/24/07
Much as it strives to be an intelligent story about intelligent people, Stranger Than Fiction is basically Adaptation for Dummies.
11/10/06
"Stranger Than Fiction" is a sterile and pedantic comedy that tells much more than it shows.
08/29/09
There's no joy in seeing Ferrell play an office drone, and the life lessons he learns are of the "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" variety.
11/09/06
The movie's vigorous efforts to channel Charlie Kaufman and Andrew Niccol, leave it looking rather familiar, not strange at all.
11/25/06
It's the kind of middlebrow film that pretends it's arty and thinks it's so smart.
11/14/06
It's not the original story we signed up for -- or thought we did.
11/09/06
Top CriticStranger Than Fiction is not clever enough to reach Adaptation's upscale audiences or funny or entertaining enough for more mass consumption.
12/01/06
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.
04/17/07
The link between comedy and tragedy is closer than Ferrell believes but the line isn't as clever as it should be and not nearly as profound as it believes it is.
11/09/06
It could have been great. But it's just okay.
12/02/08
Despite its pretensions to be unusual, oddly imitative and ordinary...less like a story you find clever and surprising than like a book you've read before.
11/09/06
Sometimes I think movies like Stranger Than Fiction don't experiment with narrative and character as much as cop out on them.
11/09/06
Top CriticIn many ways, Harold does not come across as a real character. He is more of a conceit than anything, defined entirely by quirky character traits, rather than simple humanity.
11/25/06
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