Stranger than Fiction
I may already be dead, just not typed.
31 October 2021
Will Ferrell lives a boring life as a tax man. It all gets turned upside down when he starts hearing a narrator describing his life as he lives it.
I was obsessed with this when it came out, and 15 years on I’m amazed at how much of it I’ve remembered, and even perhaps taken on board through life. It’s no masterpiece but as a high-concept existentialist comedy it holds up well. Sort of Charlie Kaufman-lite.
The clash of a boring old tax man falling for an anarchist, free-spirited baker (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is where the gold truly lies in the film and stops its premise from ever getting too irritating. Romance is the beating heart of the story, and it’s all for the better.
One to possibly win over Will Ferrell haters.