The title Stranger Than Fiction implies that reality brims with more fantastic possibilities than fiction. A cool notion, but it's wildly inconsistent for a film in which nothing actually feels real. The cinematography jars you like an Ikea commercial, the dialogue is a sonic boom of babble, and the plot itself is a gift to jaded reviewers everywhere who desire a film to decry for its "messy contrivances."
In Fiction, isolated IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) awakens one morning to find his life narrated by a voice only he can hear. The voice belongs to Kay Eiffel (Thompson), a writer struggling to end her latest book. The twist? Eiffel has a penchant for killing off all of her protagonists, and this new book stars none other than the real-life Mr. Crick. The plot follows Harold as he teams up with literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) to track down Eiffel. Harold must convince her not to kill him, so he can live happily ever after with Harvard Law dropout-turned-anarchist-baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
At one point Harold yells at Hilbert, "This is not a philosophy or literary theory to me! It's my life." Hilbert replies, "Exactly. Go make it the one you want." And how exactly does Harold seize the day? Why, by ceasing to act like a soulless calculator, buying the perfect Fender guitar, and taking in a funny movie (Oh Hollywood, you rascals!). And, of course, by eating cookies for the first time with Ana. Want to lock down one of West Philly's hottie anarchists? The keys to her chastity belt are no more than a few uncomfortable Marxist jokes and a shoddily-performed punk song away.
Stranger Than Fiction could have been a meditation on the chaos of life and the arbitrary nature of death, or it could've taken a stab at the Hollywood-induced pathology of imagining our lives as stories. Instead, it's another shallow carpe diem hack job. Pass.
