Stranger Than Fiction

Will Ferrell's dramatic abilities are not exactly impressive. Despite a general critical attitude of mild acceptance of the inevitable fact that the actor can pull off a character that doesn't fit into the SNL worldview (one which Ferrell has arguably been integral in creating), essentially the performance was not the breakthrough some may have imagined. Ferrell's Harold Crick was seething on the verge of a breakdown from the start, and not intentionally. Those beady eyes of his, like a shark's, scanning the murkiness around him, ready to attack any and every comic opportunity, in the end gave him away. Ferrell didn't leave his improvisational genius at the arthouse doorstep on this one, nearly cracking after each successive straightman (honestly, isn't everyone a straightman when appearing with Will Ferrell?) offered up a tasty bit of comic set-up, only to cringe as his line-reading super-ego kicked in. "Talladega Nights" was sillier, stupider, and a lot easier to digest, but man, did it have a vitality and energy that Stranger Than Fiction could never rival. Only one scene breathed with any kind of life. Harold and Ana sit in the bus while the camera follows, um, actually it was hard to tell because the hinge in the big, two-part city bus keeps doing its thing. Eyelines are skewed, the camera gets confused, and it's as if Fellini stopped in as guest director for the afternoon. It's really fun.

Ana, as a character, is the worst kind of scriptwriting shortcut. Boy meets girl, boy must get over individual problem to get girl, boy gets girl. I don't want to call it insensitivity, but I wouldn't want to be a woman watching this film. She isn't even given a chance to decide whether she likes him. It's written in. If, as most of its champions will argue, the essence of the film is the simple love story, then it's a pretty one-sided story. The story is about Harold Crick, and all the other characters, including Ana, are foils, incapable of individuality. Perhaps director Marc Forster's take on contemporary fiction is exactly this. Sometimes singularity must be re-examined in the name of a more complex, humanistic story.

I think that's what left me wanting more from Stranger Than Fiction. The love story left me unsatisfied, it just felt a little too easy, and the concept of the story within the story didn't really point any fingers or take any particular stance. I can really only speculate as to Forster's take on fiction as a theme.