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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.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Comedies
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.... 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. Harold's carefully controlled life is turned upside down by this narration only he can hear, and when the voice declares that Harold Crick is facing imminent death, he realizes he must find out who is writing his story and persuade her to change the ending. The voice in Harold's head turns out to be the once celebrated, but now nearly forgotten, novelist Karen "Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is struggling to find an ending for what might be her best book. Her only remaining challenge is to figure out a way to kill her main character, but little does she know that Harold Crick is alive and well and inexplicably aware of her words and her plans for him. To make matters worse, Kay's publisher has dispatched a hard-nosed "assistant," Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), to force Kay to finish her novel and finish off Harold Crick. Desperate to take control of his destiny and avoid an untimely demise, Harold seeks help from a literary theorist named Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests that Harold might be able to change his fate by turning his story from a tragedy into a comedy. Professor Hilbert suggests that Harold try to follow one of comedy's most elemental formulas: a love story between two people who hate each other. His suggestion leads Harold to initiate an unlikely romance with a free-spirited baker named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). As Harold experiences true love and true life for the first time, he becomes convinced that he has escaped his fate, as his story seems to be taking on all the trappings of a comedy in which he will not, and cannot, die. But Harold is unaware that in a Karen Eiffel tragedy, the lead characters always die at exactly the moment when they have the most to live for. Harold and Kay find themselves in unexplored territory as each must weigh the value of a single human existence against what might just be an immortal work of art: a novel about life and death -- and taxes. --© Sony Pictures [More]
Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman
Starring: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Tony Hale, Queen Latifah, Kristin Chenoweth
Director: Marc Forster
Director: Marc Forster
Producer: Lindsay Doran, Aubrey Henderson, Jim Miller, Brittany Daniel
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
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Reviews for Stranger Than Fiction
...a Charlie Kaufman movie with actual characters and a storyline worth following.
This is Will Ferrell's Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but not as good as either of those other comedies of the mind.
Who hasn't imagined that they're a main character in a book or movie? Perhaps it is this manic egocentric nature of my personality that made me fall in love with the film.
Smarter than the usual comedy and the romance is more powerful than one would expect from a romantic comedy.
A backhanded compliment to call it the first real disappointment of the season.
Beautifully written (the passages from Eiffel's book are stunningly good), acted and directed, there's not a false note in Stranger Than Fiction.
This bland and energyless production stars Will Ferrell, who sleepwalks through his part with the same stoic expression. It's a performance almost guaranteed to induce slumber.
Finally, a Charlie Kaufman movie for people who are too stupid to understand Charlie Kaufman movies.
It's the kind of middlebrow film that pretends it's arty and thinks it's so smart.
You could imagine Stranger than Fiction as a repeat of The Truman Show as adapted by Adaptation author Charlie Kaufman. Early on, Harold's story clicks. But Zach Helm's script reaches The End before Harold reaches his.
The progress Harold makes in this unconventional romance is the peak of Stranger than Fiction.
It's a clever script with some very sweet moments, and an inspiring message. I liked it!
There may have been some room for improvement, but the movie still has a lot of things to recommend it. Stranger Than Fiction is funny and poignant at the same time.
Until this unsatisfying ending, however, the movie flows exactly right.
This creative film presents a whimsical story that entertains us while also making us think about our own mortality and what's important in life.
...a nice story, with a whimsical metafictional touch, but it's a long way from mind-blowing.
When I left the theater, I got in my car, turned off my perpetually running radio, and thought for a long time before I moved. It's been a while since a film has done that.
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