Synopsis

After ten years of painstaking work, novelist Karen Eiffel is nearing completion on her latest, and potentially finest, book. If only she can get over an extremely bad bout of writers block. Her only remaining challenge is to figure out how to kill off her main character, Harold Crick. And there-in lays a problem. How! Her publicher has sent Penny Escher to help Karen through this difficult stage. Penny has neever let a publisher down. Little does Karen know there's small problem about to throw a spanner in the works. That small problem, make that soon to become big problem, is IRS Agent Harold Crick. He is inexplicably alive and well in the real world, until he suddenly can hear Karen narrating her book. Fiction and reality collide when he hears what she has in mind for him. Realizing he must quickly find a way to change how the book ends, Harold turns to literary theorist Jules Hilbert for help.

What The Critics Say

"It’s a marvellous idea for a film, and Zach Helm’s clever screenplay makes the most of some very intriguing plotting. Director Marc Forster, who has proved his versatility with such diverse films as "Monster's Ball", "Finding Neverland" and the tantalising thriller, "Stay", directs with style and wit, and there are fine contributions from the always excellent Dustin Hoffman, as an expert in literature, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the young woman with whom the uptight Harold becomes involved. 4 STARS." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES "Stranger Than Fiction is the most original comedy of the year, a mind-bending tale with one foot in the real world and the other in pure fiction." Hap Erstein ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSITUTION "Give Ferrell as many roles like this as he can possibly handle." Jim Chastain NORMAN TRANSCRIPT "Destiny, chance and a wristwatch all play a part in Stranger Than Fiction, a fascinating tale in which reality and fiction become confused." Louise Keller URBANCINEFILE "I know Ferrell's funny. He's probably even the defining comedian for his generation, but it's not my generation. I just can't bring myself to like him most of the time, nor his comedy style. Too obvious, too televisual, too beady-eyed. Call it a prejudice, I won't disagree. Ferrell rules in this film. I take back my words of prejudice. This is the smartest film in town." Paul Byrnes SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

"Ferrell, who has spent years in low-brow comedy roles, shines like never before as a dramatic lead. Like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" or Adam Sandler in "Punch Drunk Love", Ferrell shocks audiences with his subtle, muted performance. That said, all of the actors are at the top of their game here. "Stranger than Fiction" is a gem. 9/10." Mark Beirne BRISBANE WHAT'S ON "Will Ferrell delivers a moving and surprisingly delicate -- though not so surprisingly funny -- turn as the lonesome bureaucrat bedeviled by a voice only he hears." Lisa Kennedy DENVER POST "This movie is to Ferrell what The Truman Show was to Jim Carrey, the film that allows the comic to put both feet on the ground -- and to stimulate a full range of emotions." Jack Garner ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE "The blending of the intellectual and the emotional that Stranger Than Fiction achieves is so rare, and so rarely done this well. So few films are so fully satisfying on every level like this one is." MaryAnn Johanson FLICK FILOSOPHER "You can't blame an actor for trying too hard, but it's unlikely you've ever seen anyone (apart from Jerry Lewis) so obviously trying to upstage anyone as Hoffman is here. The Oscar-winner plays the role of an English professor, a noted literary authority who Crick turns to in a bid to discover which writer's voice he's hearing in his head. Des Partridge THE COURIER-MAIL

The Inside Story This is a story about a man named Harold Crick... and his wristwatch. Harold Crick was a man of infinite numbers, endless calculations and remarkably few words. And his wristwatch said even less." And so we are introduced to an ordinary man, who is good with numbers, good at his job with the I.R.S, who lives on his own and who's life it appears is dominated by his wristwatch. Until one morning, while brushing his teeth in his usually regimented manner, he hears a voice. Just one voice. A woman's voice. A voice narrating his life. No-one else can hear the narrator and, as one would expect, it drives him to distration. The story of Harold Crick is not funny. You see, Harold Crick's innocuous life is about to end. His death, the narrator tells him is imminent. What appears on the surface to be a tale of tragedy is in fact the perfect catalyst for a very funny film. A film we can all thank debut scriptwriter Zach Helm for. Helm says the inspiration for the story came to him way back in 2001. The twenty six year old decided to take his idea of a man who finds himself accompanied day and night by a relentless narrator only he can hear, to producer Lindsay Doran. It was during talks with Doran that he decided the narrator should say that the man is about to die. "I wanted to tell the story of a man who found his life just before he lost it," recalls Helm. "There’s something very poetic in the understanding of one’s place in the world and the meaning of one’s life, but it’s far more dramatic when such understanding occurs only days before that life ends." As he developed the characters in Crick's world, Helm came to the realization that all their lives would need to be deeply intertwined. "From Kay to Professor Hilbert to Penny to Ana to the wristwatch, each one of the characters ends up doing little things to help them save one another," observes Helm. "There's an underlying theme that the people and things we take most for granted are often the ones that make life worth living and actually keep us alive." 'The Narrator Project' as Doran and Helm called continued to develope. "The process was a lot of fun because it let Zach’s extraordinary imagination run wild," recalls Doran. "I would ask him questions such as 'What would happen if …' or 'Would it be more real if…' and then Zach would write a beautiful scene or a hilarious line to address the question." Helm notes that "Having Lindsay as my muse was just great. She’s very specific and very smart and she likes things to be as funny and as human as possible; so everything worked towards those two directions." Finally, the sript was finished. Doran had intended to quietly farm the script to a few choice directors, but the word was out and her phone wouldn soon be ringing off the hook. Two executives began pursuing Doran with dogged tenacity: Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane of Mandate Pictures. Drake and Kahane were persistent. "They wouldn’t take no for an answer," Doran recalls. " At first it was amusing. Then it was annoying. Then it was intriguing. And then it was a deal. They really listened to our ideas and they truly understood that you can’t ever compromise the intelligence of this kind of material just for the entertainment value. Or vice versa." They knew they’d found the right sensibility to bring Harold Crick’s comic fable to life when they saw Marc Foster's then unreleased film, "Finding Neverland." Doran says it took just ten minutes after seeing the film to decide that Foster was just what they needed in a director. "I’m not exaggerating. I felt such a sense of enchantment watching that film. And even though the tone is very different from "Stranger Than Fiction", I was convinced that Marc had an understanding of that magical side of life which was the key to transforming Zach’s script to the screen." The 'sealer'in the deal was Foster's ability to focus on all aspects of the film and not just some. "I saw "Stranger Than Fiction" as the story of a man who’s been asleep for most of his life and suddenly wakes up and realizes he has very little time left and that he has to do something we all would like to do in some way – change our story," says director Marc Forster. "I thought it was a fantastic script, a very funny comedy with heart and soul. I’d always wanted to try something comedic, but I also try to make films that are not just entertaining, but also emotional and inspiring. I was fascinated by "Stranger Than Fiction" because I think we all have a narrator in our lives. We all have inner voices in our heads that tell us what to do and how to be – and what Harold Crick discovers in the midst of these incredible events is how to escape all that and really begin to enjoy every second of his existence." Now all the team needed to do was find Harold Crick. "When I met Will Ferrell, I sensed a man who was very humble, very smart, very down-to-earth and very introverted, and I instantly knew he was Harold Crick," says Forster. "I felt very lucky because Will brought the very same vision of Harold I had in my head fully to life. He has a natural gift that allows him to do things in this film that no one has seen him do before; subtle comedy and equally subtle drama. He approached the role soulfully and yet made Harold feel like a real human being, not just a screen character. I don’t believe there is anyone who could have brought all those nuances to the role." Ferrell says he felt "an immediate sense of kinship to Harold Crick. There is something about Harold’s quiet solitude and the way he has to step outside of that to really live his life for the first time that completely resonated with me, because I have that kind of quiet side, too, and I need that kind of impetus to step out of it." This really is a career transformation for Will Ferrell and an impressive one at that. "Almost everything I’ve done so far has been out and out straight comedy," says Ferrell. "This was a big change, not to mention that it’s one of the best scripts I’d ever read. It examines big themes with beautiful touches of humanity and humor." Ferrell says Harold's reaction to hearing a voice narrating his life is "typical of those most of us would have. The comedy comes from his attempts to maintain his composure so no one thinks he’s crazy." Casting Ferrell in the lead role would prove just the catalyst the production team needed. "He was the key piece of the puzzle, and once we cast him, everything else fell into place," observes executive producer Kopeloff. "Harold suddenly found himself beleaguered and exasperated outside the bakery; cursing the heavens in futility." When it came to the voice of the narrator Karen 'Kay' Eiffel, Doran immediately envisioned Emma Thompson in the role. Foster agreed. "Emma is one of the great actresses of our generation," says Forster of the decision to offer Thompson the part of Kay. "She’s a sensitive and brilliant actress, and she’s also a very intelligent woman. I knew she would bring not only her skill as an actress to the part, but also that intelligence." So what was it that attracted the two time Academy Award ® winner to the role? "It was the best script I'd read in years and years," she states. "It was one of those rare instances where you think, 'Yes, absolutely, I'll do anything to serve this writing.' The way in which Zach Helm created a fictional reality and a real fiction, going both ways at once, is one of the most remarkable things I've encountered. There's nothing better than a combination of serious human inquiry and good gags." "Emma said yes to the part on page twenty two," laughs Doran. "I had to force her to finish the script before I called Marc and Zach to let them know she’d agreed. But she finished it and she just kept loving it more and more." Thompson says she knew she would have enjoy Karen 'Kay' Eiffel's eccentricities. "Kay is borderline bonkers," she laughs. "She has this bizarre and disgusting habit of putting out her cigarettes with a saliva-moistened tissue. She can't figure out how to kill her main character so she spends her days imagining all manner of death and destruction. You could say we meet her right at the end of her tether." It seems everyone who read the script was impressed. None more so than two time Academy Award ® winner Dustin Hoffman. "It’s rare to find a script that has even half the weight that this one has," he says. "When I read it, I was completely overcome with emotion." Hoffman says he was enchanted by by Ferrell’s performance. "I found him to be rather shy, introverted and quiet. He is very right for this role, because Harold Crick seems to be guileless, and just in the short time I've known Will, he seems guileless to me. He's the only person that I've met in recent years, over the age of ten, who still says ‘Gosh’ a lot." Of course there had to be a love interest in the film. One of my favourite actresses, Maggie Gyllenhaal, landed the role of the vivacious, rebellious, bakery owner Ana Pascal. "She was just ideal," Forster remembers. "The most important quality for Ana had to be her deep passion, and Maggie has that in her soul." "When we met with Maggie, she read the scene in which Ana talks about why she became a baker, and by the time she was through, we were all actually hungry," recalls Doran. "We were completely entranced, the same way we knew Harold would be." And how did Gyllenhall find working with Will Ferrell? "Will was constantly surprising me," she said. "He would just do little things that would take me off my track, which is exactly what you want when you’re acting. There’s a lot of life to him and I found that intoxicating." And that I think is the key word for describing how cinemagoers will find "Stranger Than Fiction". It's intoxicating. Deliciously, wickedly and, scumptuously intoxicating! The Verdict "The type of role that Chaplin (much to the delight of audiences in the 'silent era') would have inhabited and made his own. To his overwhelming credit, Will Ferrell has done just that, producing a truly Chaplinesque peformance which will give great pleasure to fans and non-fans alike. As Jim Carrey did in "The Majestic", Ferrell takes on a 'straight' role with hilarious results, proving his mettle as an allround performer. Just as Adam Sandler Did in "Punch Drunk Love", Ferrell doesn't need to be funny, because "Stranger Than Fiction" is in itself, totally comedic, thanks to the outstanding screenplay by newcomer Zach Helm. The premiss for the film, an ordinary man who suddenly can hear his life being narrated by an unknown voice, is both clever and witty. The support cast are superb with Academy Award ® winners Emma Thompson and the iconic Dustin Hoffmann (who one never tires of) giving strong performances as does the delightful Maggie Gyllenhaal, who has developed into an accomplished actress. "Stranger Than Fiction" will no doubt provide the majority of cinemagoers with a very rewarding experience. Highly recommended. 4 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "STRANGER THAN FICTION" stars .......
Will Ferrell ["Melinda and Melinda", "Elf", "Kicking & Screamimg and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"]; National Board of Review Breakthrough Performance Award winner Maggie Gyllenhaal ["Secretary", "Trust the Man", "Mona Lisa Smile", "Happy Endings" and "World Trade Centre"]; Seven time Academy Award ® nominee & Drama Desk Best Actor Award winner Dustin Hoffman ["The Graduate", "Tootsie", "Kramer vs Krame", "Meet the Fockers" and "Perfume"]; 1994 Grammy Award winner Queen Latifah ["Chicago", "Bringing Down The House", "Taxi" and "Beauty Shop"], Larry Neumann Jr ["Stir of Echoes", "Under the City", "The King of the Tango" and "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With"] with BAFTA Award, Golden Globe and Two Time Academy Award ® winner Emma Thompson ["Howards End", "In The Name Of The Father", "Sense and Sensibility" and "Nanny McPhee"] as Kay Eiffel.
"STRANGER THAN FICTION" was .......
directed by Marc Forster ["Monster’s Ball", "Finding Neverland" and "Stay"]; screenplay by Zach Helm ["Stranger Than Fiction"]; director of photography by Roberto Schaefer A.S.C. ["Monster's Ball", "Finding Neverland", "Stay" and "At Last"]; edited by by Matt Chessé A.C.E. ["Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland"]; production design by Kevin Thompson ["Party Girl", "Igby Goes Down", "Trust The Man" and "Birth"]; costume design by Frank L Fleming ["No Such Thing", "Monster’s Ball", "The Woodsman" and "Stay"] and produced by Lindsay Doran ["Leaving Normal", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Sense and Sensibility", "The Firm" and "Nanny McPhee"]. Run Time 113 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - Sony Pictures Entertainment - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2007 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved