They'd know how many steps there are in front of Gilman. They'd know how fast and how many strides you'd have to take from McCoy to get to your lecture at 11 a.m. They'd know how many words you've written when you take notes. They know numbers -- their lives are numbers. There is nothing more important than counting in the life of an IRS auditor. Harold Crick is one of them.
In Will Ferrell's latest movie, Stranger Than Fiction, he plays an IRS auditor by the name of Harold Crick. It's a serious role -- auditors don't kid around; they audit your ass.
Harold Crick does not stick out in a crowd; he's just methodical and his mind is wired to leave little room for creativity. He files reports, crunches complex multiplication in his head and looks through boxes of receipts. Yes, he's just straight out boring. Then suddenly, he hears a voice in his head.
The voice (Emma Thompson, Prisoners of Azkaban, Love Actually) is narrating his every action as if Harold was a part of some story. The British-accented female voice describes his inner thoughts, surroundings and what Harold is doing with haunting precision. She's real, she's sitting in her home typing away without a clue that Harold is real. Obviously, when Harold hears that he's going to die, he believes it.
The movie, in short, is about the strings of fate and taking control of the reins life. After hearing this distressing news, he seeks out help from a literary professor played by Dustin Hoffman. With his help, Harold embarks on a journey to find his death while the author is busy coming up with ways to kill him.
It's about that there needs to be something in your life that you live for, some passion, some force or idea that drives the soul to take a step, take a risk and just live life fruitfully all while pursuing dreams. Harold has none and figures out a way to accomplish this while coming to terms with his imminent death.
Harold is busy auditing a small coffee shop/bakery run by a spunky woman, Anna Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mona Lisa Smile, Donnie Darko) who purposeful makes his life harder -- her files are disorganized and a huge mess in a cardboard box. Harold acts coldly and oddly when around her as he has not interacted with many women before -- auditors don't get laid. However, many things in Harold's life begin to change when he realizes his death is imminent.
In a race to find the author and his death, at the same time, Harold is unknowingly racing against himself to turn his life into something that means something.
Is life already written out on pieces of paper or does each of us have pens in our hands waiting to write the next sentence? Does one spontaneously fall in love or are we just following a predetermined path and just pretending to look into their eyes for the first time?
Obviously, the movie is packed with ideas that are fit to be thrown into a classroom full of hungry philosophers and be discussed upon for many hours. Does Will Ferrell fit this role? How can he not be funny? Do not be disappointed!
Although this movie is unlike any movie in which Will Ferrell has ever acted, there are laughs embedded within the masking severity of the overarching themes of the movie. The idea of a boring-as-hell auditor going apes over a voice in his head is funny enough. It's a tragic-comedy.
Supporting roles also do a very good job at adding to the lightness that breaks up the long tension and also to creating gravity that drags the heart and soul closer to the ground. Dustin Hoffman (as seen in Meet the Fockers), can be a funny guy -- a peculiar professor crossing out a list of possible stories that Harold might be living, including being Gollum and Frankenstein, in an almost apathetic disposition, only because it's interesting to him as a literary expert. Emma Thompson's portrayal of an author with writer's block trying to find new ways of killing her main character, is a shocking view into the mind of a writer -- she imagines herself leaping off tall buildings and slamming a car into a river.
Finally the oddball and on/off relationship with Harold and Anna sparks an interesting tension and possibility in Harold's life; she, being the magnetic opposite of Harold, makes us think of possibility.
Stranger Than Fiction is a movie that is masterfully constructed with great cinematography, writing, visual effects and characters that make it a movie worth watching. If you're a fan of Will Ferrell, even if you're uncertain of the darker role he plays, it's something to watch with a significant other. It would be nice to have a narrator tell us that we only have so long to live -- maybe then we'll get off our lazy asses, maybe our eyes will be opened.
