Let me preface this by saying I normally hate Will Ferrell movies. Well, and I didn't particularly care for his characters on S.N.L. either. His character is always over the top bewildered or just plain stupid. It's funny once. But not time after time after time.
In Stranger Than Fiction, he plays an I.R.S. agent who doesn't quite fit in, takes comfort in a rigid spare life with no risks, and is… well… bewildered, when thrown off that. There's not a lot of meaning to his life.
Then he starts hearing a voice narrating his life. This is Kay Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson. She also doesn't find a lot of meaning in life. She finds her meaning in death. She kills all her main characters, and Harold Crick (Will Ferrell's character) is her character and she intends to kill him but doesn't know how.
For once, I liked a Will Ferrell movie. It isn't a great movie, but it's a very nice, inventive movie that I'd rate highly because I could watch it a few times. When it comes on T.V., I'll probably stop and watch it again. It all fit very well together. Will Ferrell works very well in the movie. He doesn't overact his bewilderment for once. Emma Thompson is the perfect face of an ivory tower author. They did some nice things with the set design, putting both characters in very spare locales, I assume to tie the characters together in more than just the story. In contrast, Maggie Gyllenhaal's space is rich. She the love interest that Harold Crick ogles. And Dustin Hoffman plays the rumpled literature professor who Crick gets to help find out what to do, and helps him figure out who his narrator is. Also, I noticed Tom Hulce in the credits and totally didn't recognize his part. Man does he look different than his youthful Amadeus days.
Yeah, liked this movie.