This is a story about a man and his wristwatchwe’re told by the narrator. Harold Krick is a mild-mannered everyman who works at the IRS (the American Tax Office). He goes about his daily life like clockwork, until one day…
Ah, a twist. Cue standard plot device.
Well, it’s hard to say if the over-arching plot rises above the standard – mild-mannered man, influenced by outside factor/plot twist turns his life around – the trick here is that it all gets a little Kaufmann-esque: Harold starts to hear his narrator. And the narrator tells him that he will soon die.
I was going to describe this as a “cute movie”, but then again I’m not entirely sure what I mean by that. I like these kind of meta-stories where things get a little stranger than usual [ed: allusion not intended], and Stranger than Fiction fits right into that style. There are places where it could have gotten more creative, but that’s only a “perfect world” scenario.
Will Farrell plays straight-laced excellently, though I can imagine Jim Carey pulling it off just as well (as long as somebody kept him in check). Maggie Gylenhall is cute, eventually, as the love interest, and Dustin Hoffman pulls off a brilliant professor. Emma Thompson looks sufficiently haggard, suiting her role perfectly, but Queen Latifah is about the only actor that really misses – more because of her character not being given anything to work with, merely acting as a facilitator for plot points.
Good movie, worth watching on DVD.
★★★☆