Movies: "Stranger Than Fiction"

I just saw "Stranger Than Fiction," a movie directed by Marc Forster. I've disliked Forster's previous films - the tedious "Monster's Ball" and the maudlin "Finding Neverland," even as critics laud them. This time, however, Forster is using the screenplay of newcomer Zach Helm, and the result is Will Ferrell's best movie.

Ferrell plays a metro-boulot-dodo IRS auditor who suddenly hears a narration about his life...everywhere he goes. The consequences of that are often hilarious and sometimes touching, but the movie never strays too far from the norm, unlike Kaufman's "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," two films that this one will inevitably be compared to. The ending is especially disappointing, for reasons that would spoil the movie if revealed.

Will Ferrell keeps the slapstick antics under control, though his emotional range never quite comes into the subtle, disguised melancholy one would expect from a typical "office drone breaks out of the mold" plot. Maggie Gyllenhall isn't really acting too much here, but the role doesn't require it, so she gets a pass. Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah are good in the film but are, let's face it, playing roles that they've played before.

An entertaining, funny dramedy, but not enough meat on the bones to be a classic.

8/10