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Rating: It is very difficult to talk about a movie we like and explain why we like it.
For us, it is entirely natural; we tell ourselves, "Well, it's normal, it's beautiful." But in the end, we understand that these are merely points of view, and right after you say "it's beautiful," you find yourself in front of someone who had the same sensation, someone who hated the movie, someone who found it mediocre, and an endless series of someone, someone, and someone again.
And then we ask ourselves: why did we like it if others perhaps found such a film banal and dull?
Perhaps because of the original screenplay, or the amusing performances by the actors, or even the charming way the film was shot.
The story is about a man called Harold Creek (the first and so far only good performance by Will Ferrell). He is alone and hated by everyone: he is a tax agent. Unable to have any relationship with anyone, he has retreated into a world made of numbers, where everything counts, from the steps he takes to reach the bus stop to the strokes of the toothbrush he gives himself each morning on his teeth, and he mentally performs calculations beyond human capacity in a matter of seconds. His only friend is a wristwatch that can’t bear to be used solely for telling time.
And then the impossible happens: from one day to the next, he hears a female voiceover describing all his movements with peculiar precision and a much broader vocabulary than his own. The only small problem? He hears her, and he soon discovers he is destined for a death much closer than he thought.
Meanwhile, in another place, dramatic writer Kai Eiffel (a fabulous Emma Thompson) suffering from writer's block, is writing a new book that is, in fact, about a certain Harold Creek, but she’s trying to find an effective way to kill him.
Knowing he’s destined for certain death, Harold begins to live his last days with more grit and spirit and discovers that the world is much less cruel than he thought...
This is the plot, and, although it had a good critical success and was a film by the director of award-winning Oscar masterpieces such as "Neverland" and "Monster's Ball," it took his latest "The Kite Runner" to reintroduce the world to this film.
Well executed and featuring great actors like Dustin Hoffman in the role of a shabby literature expert, Queen Latifah abandoning her usual dirty and brazen roles to discover herself as more serious and composed in the role of a secretary sent by the writer’s publishing house to push her to finish her book, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, less famous sister of Donnie Darko/Jake Gyllenhaal, who here, in the role of a charming anarchist baker who wants to improve the world with chocolate cookies, gives herself the right appreciation, the film is a breath of fresh air in the current cinematic situation.
Sadly, for the mediocre but at least reassuring ending that makes the film lose a star, otherwise, for that touch of magic that it encapsulates, "Stranger Than Fiction", would be one of the best comedies of all time.
Recommended to everyone.
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