Stranger than Fiction

Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, Maggie Gyllenhaal 
Genre: Comedy 2006
Running time: 113 mins
Rating:★★★

Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears  a mysterious voice narrating his life. With the help of Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), Harold discovers he's the main character in a novel-in-progress and that the voice belongs to Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), an eccentric author famous for killing her main characters in creative ways. Harold must quickly track down Eiffel and stop her before she conjures up a way to finish him off.

I'll admit that Will Ferrell annoys me to no end. In each film that I've seen him in, he is extremely obnoxious and over the top-poorly acted comedy. I would rather listen to old school reggae or ska than watch him in a film. However, in this film, he finally shows that he can act in a serious role. In it is in this type of role that the comedy is refreshing and delightful. And what makes the comedy more organic and witty, is the wonderfully casted group of actors. Their beings and range is too magnanimously beautiful to describe that you wonder why they never acted as a group before! My love for Queen Latifah has grown immensely in the past few weeks, ever since watching The Secret Life of Bees. She is a powerhouse of an actress, showing both vulnerability, comedic wit, and strength.

Love the "boxy"ness of the set design to the numbers/calculations on the screen that helps illustrate how mundane his life and the feeling toward his work in the first half of the film. It isn't until he meets Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that the set design transitions to a more chaotic-organic freedom of the same ol' same ol'.