This could easily have veered into excesses of cute or predictable or trite or stupid (or some combination of those), and I kept waiting for it to fail, but somehow it stayed upright and finished as a satisfying, if not outstanding, story. I personally have always been intrigued by stories that mix frames, muddle reality vs story, etc., but so often they ultimately disappoint. This one, about a character in a novel who starts to hear the author narrating his life, and planning his death, holds up reasonably well, avoids several wrong turns.
Having it anchored by Will Farrell was another worry for me -- I like him, but he is known more for comedy, and is pretty bland, especially in the first half of this movie. This serves his character, who is a very boring IRS auditor, but ultimately we (the audience) need to find something interesting and/or likable about our main character to keep watching (or indeed, care whether he dies). Farrell does pull it off, but I have to say just barely -- without some very nice supporting performances from Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, I think this would have sunk into lameness. Creative but solid directing and writing, some clever special effects, and good music help to add enough freshness to keep it enjoyable. Solid B, worth a rent.
update: For a long time I considered Roger Ebert the quintessential movie critic, but over the more recent years I've slowly but surely been losing faith in him. I just read
his review of Stranger Than Fiction, and I think I see at least part of his problem. He doesn't pay close attention, and ends up reading things into movies that aren't there. For example, about this movie, among other things, Ebert writes "Harold would prefer not to audit any more tax returns." Uh, that never actually is said or even implied; it
might be true, but the movie really isn't about that, and isn't focused on it. I think Ebert read that into it because he wanted to make the connection to Bartleby the Scrivener. Sometimes he just picks up the gloss of a movie, and then leaps to connections and conclusions as he sees fit. I suppose we all do that to some degree, and I suppose if I were to write as many movie reviews as he does, I'd start to get sloppy and gloss over details, too. But still, I think he misses some stuff and gets some movies wrong because of it. Just sayin'...
