The film Stranger than Fiction was recommended to me by colleague and friend, Paul Lima. He had been careful to note he was not a Will Farrell fan, something we share in common, but felt this film was a complete and remarkable departure for the silly man of humour. Paul was absolutely right.
Stranger than Fiction, while not dealing with a novel concept, tells the story of Mr. Harold Crick through the voice of a narrator who happens to be a writer working on a novel in which her fictional character also coincidentally happens to be a real person. The problem is she always kills her protagonists. As the story unfolds, not only does Mr. Crick, played by Will Farrell, discover a female voice in his head, which turns out to be the brilliant writer Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson, but realizes the futility of his life and that he is most certainly going to die as a result of being a character in Ms. Eiffel’s book.
It is a touchingly poignant, profound film with sensitive performances and gentle humour. Certainly this has shown the scope of what Will Farrell is capable, and the interplay between him and other legendary character actors such as Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hulce, and Queen Latifah is always immensely human and completely believable.
My only regret is that we don’t see more of this sort of performance from Will Farrell; he plainly is an actor worthy of better scripts than he accepts.
An absolute must see film, and definitely worth adding to your library.