I watched Will Ferrell's new movie "Stranger Than Fiction" in theatre and on DVD this week. It is a charming and wonderfully weird movie that is about plot conventions without actually having any in it.
It follows the mundane daily routines of Howard Crick, a man who works for the IRS and is obsessed with numbers. (Warning: Will Ferrell plays the straight man.) He suddenly starts to hear his life being narrated by a mysterious voice. Meanwhile, Emma Thompson plays the author who is trying to figure out how to kill the main character in her latest novel.
Howard begins to realise that he is a character in a book, and sets out to advance the plot (his life is rather plotless). After ruling out many conventional plots, he decides that the plot convention he is to follow is unlikely love, when he sets out to make the woman he is auditing fall in love with him. This becomes apparent only after he realises that she absolutely detests him.
I love this movie for the superb acting and very clever script. The characters are unique, but do follow some stereotypes and conventions. Howard Crick is the boring, stuffy, numbers driven taxman and Emma Thompson is a "fantastically depressing" author suffering from writer's block. Oh, there is also a hilarious extra scene in the special features that includes two book interviews by this hilarious woman who does a great spoof of the typical ultra-cheery morning show host.
I definitely recommend this movie if you are up for something .... strange.
3 comments:
I think that stranger than ficton is such a good movie. I think Will Ferrell is really good in it. I've been noticing that whenever comedians switch over and do serious roles they always turn out to be really good movies. such as when Jim Carey did eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, or when he did The Truman show, Or when Adam Sandler did Spanglish or the new movie he's coming out with about 911. Its interesting how whenever comedians switch over to serious roles it works out so well, especially since alot of people don't take comedians serious as actors generally.
I saw Stranger than Fiction a while ago, it was a really good film. I loved the concept with the apple and I loved Emma Thompson's character as an odd writer how is having writers block. The way in which she tries to get over writers block is the funniest thing. This is a really good movie which it is weird to see Will Ferrell in a movie that is not Anchorman, not matter how good that movie is. This movie was really good!
i love when you see comedians play a serious role and it works , except just seeing them play this role its kinda different to watch just because you know who they are and the type of movies they usually act in but the its still very good. i also really think Jim Carreys new movie 23 is very good,he plays the character pretty well. I havnt seen stranger than fiction yet, but it looks really good and i am hoping to see it soon.
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