Movie Journal: Stranger Than Fiction

The truth is, I sat down to watch Stranger Than Fiction thinking it was a Will Ferrell movie. That over the course of this movie I would be mildly entertained by a somewhat intriguing plot, and that the main appeal would be Will Ferrell's over-the-top antics. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong, because Stranger Than Fiction is not "a Will Ferrell movie". In fact, in a way, it's not even a comedy. It's a thriller so vivid and bursting with imagination that it simply exudes a charm so intoxicating you can't help but be very, very amused.

Having pointed out that it is a thriller, I shall certainly do my best to give away as little as possible. After all, it's so easy to spoil a thriller, isn't it? But I will tell you that never so well have I seen Will Ferrell portray this type of character, a person who's so very boring and normal. An agent of the IRS, in fact. A man who counts how many brush strokes he applies to his teeth every morning, and keeps track of the seconds during lunch breaks. A man who is so caught up in all the systematic routines of life he no longer remembers how to simply stop and enjoy it. And that is about as far as I'll get before exposing an inciting incident so unique and thrilling, I doubt I will ever see one quite like it again.

If you missed this movie in 2006 because Will Ferrell was starring in it, as I did, then don't make my same mistake twice. It's true that it's not without it's flaws. I found the romantic elements a bit too gratuitously sexual for my liking, and felt it could have been much more poetic. But no movie is perfect, and I doubt that I will forget this one for a long, long time.

8 out of 10