Review: Stranger Than Fiction

Will Ferrell is great as Harold Crick, a routine-driven, by-the-numbers IRS auditor who for no apparent reason hears a voice (Emma Thompson) narrating his everyday life. All this just seems a little, well, "strange" until the voice announces that Harold's death is imminent. Helped along by his wristwatch and Jules Hilpert (Dustin Hoffman), a literature professor who's trying to determine if the story is a comedy or a tragedy, Harold begins to live his life as if he really is dying--with newfound meaning and purpose.

Zach Helm's writing is delightful and Marc Forster's (Finding Neverland) directing clever, and the film contains quite a few questions worth considering beyond the closing credits.

As the plot progresses, we learn that the voice Harold hears is that of author Karen Eiffel, that she is writing a book about Harold Crick, whom she has never met and doesn't realize is real, and that she has indeed penned his demise. Harold doesn't want to die, especially after finally beginning to live his life, but after reading through Eiffel's finished manuscript, Hilbert tells Harold something along the lines of, "We all die. If not today, in this way, then tomorrow or the next day in some other way." A heart attack. Choking on a mint. And, he says, the death written for Harold has meaning and poignancy beyond those other mundane deaths. "The hero dies but the story lives on," Hilpert argues.

While Harold comes to terms with all of this, as well as if he would do something differently if he could, Karen wonders if she has the power to save Harold's life at all--or, is there no chance to change what's already written in our lives?

I won't ruin the ending, but Eiffel's final narration claims that it's the beauty in the little things which make up our lives and our every days which truly make life worth living. This is a lesson Harold Crick learns and lives out and it's the questions his story raise (what will we do in the face of death and our own mortality and, what truly makes a life--and death--meaningful?) that make this film well worth watching.