"Stranger Than Fiction"
Directed by: Marc Forster
Cast: Will Ferrell, Emma Th-
ompson, Dustin Hoffman
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen
Latifah
Rated: PG-13 (for brief nudity
mild adult language, mild adul
situations)
Running time: 142 minutes
Best suited for: surrealists
meta-romantics
Least suited for: rom-com tra-
ditionalists

I am not a Will Ferrell fan. Ironically, my last column kinda dissed the man.

"Elf" was great-if you're a 5yearold, "Kicking and Screaming" if you're 7. "Ron Burgundy," "Bewitched" and "Talladega Nights" are all throwaway efforts, if not at the box office, certainly in the realm of the cerebrally sound. The irony is that Will Ferrell's a bona fide star now. I guess there's a place in Hollywood for that kind of juvenile humor; it's just not for me. (Another irony is we Pinto-driving critics ragging on Hollywood's Ferrari-driving elite. One should consider the source, I suppose.) Still, I wasn't convinced that Ferrell could ever escape his stoner-centric SNL roots.

When I heard the pre-release buzz about "Stranger Than Fiction"-that Emma Thompson would be playing against Will Ferrell, I questioned somebody's rationale. Thompson and Ferrell? That was roughly akin to Emma Thompson performing "Macbeth" opposite Groucho Marx. The concept just wouldn't gel in my brain.

Admittedly, I went to see the film awaiting disappointment.

Irony abounds indeed. Not since "Groundhog Day" have I experienced a plot this inventive; not since "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has a character been so plagued by such pretzeltwists of reality, so privileged with smart and discerning dialogue.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a drab IRS agent content with the mundaneness of his life. He's a man fascinated with numbers: he counts the strokes of his toothbrush, the paces to his bus stop, the ceiling tiles above his tiny cubicle. He owns a wristwatch, not quite ordinary because yes, there's a hint of the metaphysical here. This is an ethereal fable, after all, but if you're not a meta fan, don't fret. You're barely aware of its presence.

Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is a reclusive writer of dark, lethal thrillers. She's attempting to finish a book about a fictional character named Harold Crick. Kay's on the edge of despair, having suffered writer's block for quite some time, not sure how to kill off her newest protagonist. Dispatching her characters is Eiffel's literary signature. Eiffel's characters always die.

Somehow, the real Harold Crick and the fictional Harold Crick merge-and, drat, I've told you too much already. Nothing the trailers haven't already given away, but like so many intelligent films, the less said, the better experienced. My advice is to experience "Stranger Than Fiction" as unacquainted as you can.

The cast is brilliant. Thompson plays chainsmoking neuroticism with wonderful aplomb; Dustin Hoffman plays literary professor Jules Hilbert with understated vitality. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Ana Pascal, a bohemian bakery owner whom Click is auditing and, utterly unlike him in every way, she snatches his heart. Tom Hulce and Queen Latifah are also part of the cast-a normally frenetic ensemble that graces the screen with quiet dignity.

Such adroit, precise performances add a credible pall to Click's otherwise mystical destiny. Because "Stranger Than Fiction" isn't played for laughs; Harold Crick's occasional comedic outbursts aren't Ferrell's at all-they're Harold Crick's, as he quietly stumbles toward insanity. And Ferrell wonderfully inhabits Crick. (His performance is on par with Jim Carrey's portrayal of "Eternal Sunshine's" braindamaged Joel Barrish-in my opinion, Carrey's best performance to date as well.)

Director Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland") and screenwriter Zach Helm infuse mood with creative substance-both in their characters and in the slightly awry world they inhabit. Bare walls and empty rooms emulate mental angst; rain mirrors tortured souls. In one gray-against-gray scene a creatively vacant Kay Eiffel squints and snarls into a downpour, angrily sucking a cigarette and saying little. It is a magnificent moment.

And while I'm aware that many filmgoers don't bother themselves with shadows and angles and arrangement (frankly, most of the time I'm drawn to such composition, it's for the wrong reason), Forster's characters appear to absorb their ambiance. And rarely has a film so unobtrusively utilized computer graphics.

As Harold Crick reluctantly spirals toward a destiny playing out on a distant keyboard-a marionette dancing to the clickclick-click of twitchy fingers- one can't help but stay mesmerized. "Stranger Than Fiction" is a beautiful, magical fable about love and destiny. Welcome to my Hollywood, Mr. Ferrell.