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JAYLEAH KYM JOHNSON

 STRANGER THAN FICTION REVIEW 

With his unassuming eyes and sheepish, "awe shucks!" demeanor, Will Ferrell is quite simply the guy you root for—the eternal boy trapped in a gangly 6'3" frame. Just a single look can make you giggle and smile so effortlessly that you're often unaware that you're actually doing it. It is with this notion that Stranger than Fiction—Ferrell's first major part outside the realm of in-your-face frat boy silliness—just makes sense. By surrounding Ferrell's charisma with a subdued, darkly comic script and a talented supporting cast, we get a film that is fresh and heartfelt and funny. 

Directed by Marc Forster and penned by Zach Helm, Stranger than Fiction is an odd mix-mash, combining a standard comedy with existentialist ideas. Number crunching IRS agent and genuine loser, Harold Crick (Ferrell) one day wakes up to find his life being narrated word for word by burnt out writer Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Odd thing is, Eiffel is writing an actual book where Crick just happens to be the main character. To make matters worse, she plans on killing him off as soon as she can make it through a particularly arduous stretch of writer's block.

Originality is one thing that is absent from a majority of contemporary Hollywood pictures, so this film immediately gets points for simply trying something different. I suppose it's icing on the cake that the film is genuinely good. Crick, knowing that his death is imminent, begins to break out of his shell and experience the fruits of his life. And, in the process he forms a bond with a tax breaking baker (Gyllenhaal) and seeks advice from a literature professor, played by a particularly charming Dustin Hoffman 

However. in my opinion, even though it is well intentioned, the execution isn't flawless. The romance that develops between Gyllenhaal's outcast baker and Ferrell's strait-laced Crick didn't feel entirely organic. I admired the relationship and its sugar coated sweetness, but I did't necessarily believe their connection. It may taste good, but it doesn't exactly wash down smoothly. Neither does the film's over reliance on reinforcing generic, "Carpe Diem" philosophies. Towards the second act, things do get sappy. Luckily, by the conclusion, the plot has bounced back to a wonderful limbo of both oddly comic and genuinely heartwarming moments.

For all its flaws, Stranger than Fiction, works. Like a good novel, Forster has fashioned something that is strange, stylistic, and unexpectedly inspiring.

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