AUTHOR! AUTHOR! : Marc Forster's 'Stranger Than Fiction' [7/10]

Monday, 11 September 2006

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my life, or whether that station
will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

On paper, Stranger Than Fiction shouldn't really work. The teaming of stars Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson isn't by any means an obvious one, and any summary of Zach Helm's screenplay will make it sound like an unpromising mashup of Charlie Kaufman's scripts for Spike Jonze's Adaptation and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with strong echoes of Peter Weir's The Truman Show and M Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, among several others*

In a striking change of gear from his recent Talladega Nights persona of the buffoonish Ricky Bobby, Ferrell is Harold Crick, a buttoned-down tax-man in his late thirties who, while brushing his teeth one morning, starts hearing a voice in his head. Listening more closely to these cultured, English-sounding tones, Harold realises that his life-story is being 'narrated' by an unseen author. A trip to a psychiatrist proves less fruitful than consultations with literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who leads Harold to conclude that his narrating voice belongs to Kay Eiffel (Thompson). Eiffel is a successful and respected novelist who hasn't published a book in several years - but her latest manuscript, about a tax-man named Harold Crick, is nearing completion. But will the story turn out to be a romantic comedy - in which the previously-lovelorn Harold ends up happily with radical-socialist baker Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal) - or, in common with Eiffel's previous (uniformly gloomy) tomes, a tragedy culminating in her hero' sad demise?

For much of its running-time, Stranger Than Fiction alternates between what seem to be parallel planes of reality: Harold's hectic existence, which we take to be a product of Kay's imagination, and the author's apparently more 'real' world, in which she is goaded towards completing her much-delayed book by Penny (Queen Latifah), an assistant provided by her impatient publisher. These are two unequal halves: Harold's "story" is lively and amusing, a form of overlaid, geometrical white-line CGI animation occasionally being deployed to take us into his over-analytical mindset. The sections devoted to his narrator/creator are rather more arch, with Thompson's Kay every inch the suffering, chain-smoking artist at work. There doesn't seem to be an satisfactory way in which the film's two strands can be brought together - especially when Harold discovers Kay's identity and determines to track her down and dissuade her from killing him off (one character in rather frantic search of an author, if you like.)

The way screenwriter Zach Helm (whose first produced screenplay this is) handles the tricky final act won't be to everyone's liking - especially those who expect to have every "t" crossed and every "i" dotted by the time they've left the theatre. Stranger Than Fiction (whose end-credits are, by the way, particularly nifty) doesn't "make sense" in the conventional way - but turns out to be a crucial part of its idiosyncratic charm, a twist that sets it apart from its various antecedents. This an sweetly irrational romantic comedy which makes perfect sense on the romantic, comic, and emotional levels - the closest comparison perhaps being Peter Chelsom's defiantly coincidence-happy Serendipity (2001).

Ferrell, who continues to steadily improve with every film (he's now unrecognisable as the grating charisma-gap from 2001's Zoolander) grows into what's by some way the best role he's ever received. And his slightly-stylised appearance (striking height, button eyes, tight-curled hairstyle) neatly fits the idea of Harold being to some degree an 'invented' person. Thompson (who, for obvious structural reasons, doesn't actually share much screen-time with Ferrell) provides classy counterpoint, even if we're never given much evidence that Eiffel is the Updike/Attwood hybrid of Hilbert's description); Gyllenhaal and Hoffman both manage to breathe life into what are rather more thankless supporting parts (more than can be said for the miscast Latifah.) Crucially, it's all handled with a persuasively light touch by director Forster, finally confirming that he showed with his 2000 breakthrough Everything Put Together.

Forster had seemed to have lost his way somewhat, with the overrated Monster's Ball (2001) and Finding Neverland (2004) and the curiously little-seen flop Stay (2005). He seems to be one of those (non-writing) directors who's only as good as the script they're given - and he really seems to 'click' with Helm's work here, crafting a film that's often impressive to look at (cinematographer Roberto Schaefer nimbly avoids the visual cliches long associated with Chicago-set movies) and jauntily charming in tone. One notably consistent source of pleasure is the notably well-chosen selection of pop songs and original music, the latter by Britt Daniel (of Austin alt-rockers Spoon) and Brian Reitzell. Such contributions are vital in ensuring that Stranger Than Fiction comes to life up on the screen - no matter how unlikely or clever-clever it might all have seemed on the page.

Neil Young
17th September, 2006
(publication delayed until late November due to FDA embargo)

STRANGER THAN FICTION : [7/10] : USA 2006 : Marc FORSTER : 113 mins (BBFC timing) : seen at Sony screening room, London (UK), 6th October 2006 - press show (with thanks to Rich Cline)

* Perhaps George Romero's The Dark Half and Wes Craven's Wes Craven's New Nightmare... and, at a stretch, Dennis Potter's Karaoke and David Fincher's The Game, with their explorations of how what appears to be free will can often turn out to be the subject of external manipulation from unseen, possibly insidious, forces.

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