Official Movie Website Theatrical Release 11/10//06 Home Video 02/27/07 MPAA Rating Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity Running Time 1 hour 45 minutes Genre Comedy Director Marc Forster Writer Zach Helm Cast Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson Studio Sony Pictures |
STRANGER THAN FICTION
SYNOPSIS
One morning, a seemingly average and generally
solitary IRS agent named Harold Crick begins to
hear a female voice narrating his every action,
thought and feeling in alarmingly precise detail.
Harold's carefully controlled life is turned upside
down by this narration only he can hear, and when
the voice declares that Harold Crick is facing
imminent death, he realizes he must find out who is
writing his story and persuade her to change the
ending.
The voice in Harold's head turns out to be the once
celebrated, but now nearly forgotten, novelist Karen
"Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is struggling to
find an ending for what might be her best book. Her
only remaining challenge is to figure out a way to kill
her main character, but little does she know that
Harold Crick is alive and well and inexplicably aware
of her words and her plans for him.
To make matters worse, Kay's publisher has
dispatched a hard-nosed "assistant," Penny Escher
(Queen Latifah), to force Kay to finish her novel and
finish off Harold Crick.
One morning, a seemingly average and generally
solitary IRS agent named Harold Crick begins to
hear a female voice narrating his every action,
thought and feeling in alarmingly precise detail.
Harold's carefully controlled life is turned upside
down by this narration only he can hear, and when
the voice declares that Harold Crick is facing
imminent death, he realizes he must find out who is
writing his story and persuade her to change the
ending.
The voice in Harold's head turns out to be the once
celebrated, but now nearly forgotten, novelist Karen
"Kay" Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is struggling to
find an ending for what might be her best book. Her
only remaining challenge is to figure out a way to kill
her main character, but little does she know that
Harold Crick is alive and well and inexplicably aware
of her words and her plans for him.
To make matters worse, Kay's publisher has
dispatched a hard-nosed "assistant," Penny Escher
(Queen Latifah), to force Kay to finish her novel and
finish off Harold Crick.
© 2003 St. Louis Movie Review Weekly. All rights reserved, except where indicated.
All movie titles, pictures, etc...are the property of their respective studios.
All movie titles, pictures, etc...are the property of their respective studios.
| ST. LOUIS MOVIE REVIEW WEEKLY |
Desperate to take control of his destiny and avoid an untimely demise, Harold seeks help from a literary
theorist named Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests that Harold might be able to change his fate
by turning his story from a tragedy into a comedy. Professor Hilbert suggests that Harold try to follow one
of comedy's most elemental formulas: a love story between two people who hate each other. His
suggestion leads Harold to initiate an unlikely romance with a free-spirited baker named Ana Pascal
(Maggie Gyllenhaal).
As Harold experiences true love and true life for the first time, he becomes convinced that he has
escaped his fate, as his story seems to be taking on all the trappings of a comedy in which he will not,
and cannot, die. But Harold is unaware that in a Karen Eiffel tragedy, the lead characters always die at
exactly the moment when they have the most to live for. Harold and Kay find themselves in unexplored
territory as each must weigh the value of a single human existence against what might just be an
immortal work of art: a novel about life and death -- and taxes.
--© Sony Pictures
theorist named Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests that Harold might be able to change his fate
by turning his story from a tragedy into a comedy. Professor Hilbert suggests that Harold try to follow one
of comedy's most elemental formulas: a love story between two people who hate each other. His
suggestion leads Harold to initiate an unlikely romance with a free-spirited baker named Ana Pascal
(Maggie Gyllenhaal).
As Harold experiences true love and true life for the first time, he becomes convinced that he has
escaped his fate, as his story seems to be taking on all the trappings of a comedy in which he will not,
and cannot, die. But Harold is unaware that in a Karen Eiffel tragedy, the lead characters always die at
exactly the moment when they have the most to live for. Harold and Kay find themselves in unexplored
territory as each must weigh the value of a single human existence against what might just be an
immortal work of art: a novel about life and death -- and taxes.
--© Sony Pictures