IMDb on iPhone and iPod touch Learn more Learn more Download from the App Store
IMDb > Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Stranger Than Fiction
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotes
Overview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv schedule
Awards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage board
Plot & Quotes
plot summarysynopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotes
Fun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQ
Other Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDesk
Promotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo gallery
External Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clips

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) More at IMDbPro »

Photos (see all 51 | slideshow) Videos (see all 12)
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) -- An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) -- An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) -- An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) -- CineMagia.ro - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.9/10   68,490 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 17% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writer (WGA):
Zach Helm (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Stranger Than Fiction on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
10 November 2006 (USA) more
Tagline:
Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Period. more
Plot:
An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 11 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(78 articles)
User Comments:
Clever intellectual wizardry more (453 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Will Ferrell ... Harold Crick

William Dick ... IRS Co-Worker #1
Guy Massey ... IRS Co-Worker #2
Martha Espinoza ... IRS Co-Worker #3
T.J. Jagodowski ... IRS Co-Worker #4

Peter Grosz ... IRS Co-Worker #5
Ricky Adams ... Young Boy

Christian Stolte ... Young Boy's Father
Denise Hughes ... Kronecker Bus Driver
Peggy Roeder ... Polish Woman

Tonray Ho ... IRS Co-Worker #6

Tony Hale ... Dave

Maggie Gyllenhaal ... Ana Pascal
Danny Rhodes ... Bakery Employee #1
Helen Young ... Bakery Customer #1
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Killing Harold Crick (USA) (working title)
more
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.
Runtime:
113 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Dustin Hoffman's character (Professor Hilbert) creates a questionnaire of 23 items for Will Ferrell's character (Harold Crick). Professor David Hilbert, the German mathematician, proposed a famous list 23 problems at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. Hilbert's problems became so famous that they are typically referred to by number among mathematicians and philosophers and several are still unanswered. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: There are a number of inconsistencies in the apartment demolition scene. After seeing a man appear in the apartment partially wrecked by their front-end loader, the demo crew foreman shouts "stop the crane," which would only be appropriate if they were using a wrecking ball instead. Demo crews would never start work at an incorrect address - the site was obviously not prepared for wrecking, there were no permits posted, and the demo plan would not have matched the configuration of the "wrong" building (OK, so this is a conceit of the movie, we can suspend the disbelief for this one.) Also, the front end loader would not have been stopped for so long after tearing out the first chucks of the apartment. Yes, after seeing an occupant, work would stop immediately, but there was an overly long stop period before they see Harold Crick. (This can also be the writer's conceit, but it truly doesn't fit the situation.) more
Quotes:
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that? more
Movie Connections:
Features The Meaning of Life (1983) more
Soundtrack:
Small Stakes more

FAQ

If the book's ending was so perfect, why would Eiffel change it?
Why doesn't Harold tell Ana what was going to happen to him?
What is the song Harold plays for Ana?
more
70 out of 84 people found the following comment useful.
Clever intellectual wizardry, 9 December 2006
8/10
Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom

What if you only realised the importance of your life only days before you lost it? Even knowing when or how you will die (not such a fatuous idea with the completion of the Genome Project) raises difficult questions about how much we really want to know about ourselves.

Such a theme is usually simplified and subsumed into religious-based tales such as It's a Wonderful Life, but taken as an idea in its own right it has considerable intellectual weight. Harold Crick finds himself the main character in a story as it unfolds, but his annoyance quickly shifts gear as he is aware of the author saying, "Little did he know . . . it would lead to his imminent death."

Not the mindless comedy that the trailer suggests, Stranger Than Fiction is a precise and fairly cerebral story where the laughs stem more from individually appreciating certain aspects of its cleverness rather than any contrived humour.

The surface story is of a man who lives a humdrum if 'successful' life and is awakened to a more three dimensional existence by falling in love. The additional elements will either delight or annoy. IRS auditor Crick (Will Ferrell) starts hearing a voice in his head. It is that of Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson), a famous author. She describes exactly what he is doing but with a rather better vocabulary than he possesses. When she announces his imminent death, he takes drastic steps to meet her and persuade her to change the ending of her novel.

The characterisation, casting and acting is spot-on. Thompson is at her most refreshingly deranged as the harassed and reclusive author. With a literary equivalence of method acting, Eiffel balances on the edge of her desk trying to imagine the thoughts of someone about to make a suicide jump. She sits in the freezing drizzle watching cars cross a bridge to imagine an accident. Her rants at her 'editorial assistant' (who uses more traditional methods of accessing imagination) give a convincing insight into the creative process. While the voice in Crick's head is stereotypical Thompson, the fuller, isolated character, when we meet her, is a minor revelation. "I don't need a nicotine patch," she declaims angrily to her assistant. "I smoke cigarettes."

Maggie Gyllenhaal, as law drop-out turned baker Ana Pascal, sparkles, glows and is sexily alluring and radiant with passionate love of life - and she manages to light up the screen faster than, say, even Juliette Binoche in Chocolat. Dustin Hoffman has the least challenging of the main parts, but he endows his character (an eminent professor of literature) with the gravitas needed to take ideas of literary interconnectedness seriously. Will Ferrell gives a remarkable break-out performance in a straight role, reminiscent of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. He is superbly suited to the part as audiences expect him to be a shallow comedy character and here he is trying the find the substantial person inside himself. Most of the audience are concentrating so much on the film's intricate hypothesis and how it is worked out, that only afterwards do we realise what a range of emotions Ferrell has to portray with complete seriousness.

Novelist Kay Eiffel (Thompson) anthropomorphises things like Crick's watch (similarly the official website says, in real time, "As the cursor waited anxiously for the site to load, it couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of elation.") We sense a life-imbuing process that might even be likened to what an actor does with his character; but the film goes a stage further by drawing a similarity with the essentially lifeless, clockwork existence of the IRS auditor whose only escape is discovering love with Pascal. His quest is aided by fictional plot analysis from Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) and of course begs the question, what is fiction?

Director Marc Forster showed consummate skill in portraying the positive escapism of JM Barrie's creative Peter-Pan-writing in Finding Neverland. With Stranger Than Fiction, he has teamed up with brilliant new dramatist Zach Helm. Helm is fascinated with the writing process in what he calls a larger Post-Modern movement. "From Pirandello, to Brecht, to Wilder, to Stoppard, to Woody Allen to Wes Anderson, we can see the progression of a contemporary, self-aware, reality-bending and audience-involving wave in dramatic literature," he says. "I love to see Homer Simpson reacting to his creator, Matt Groenig, or the cast of 'Urinetown' complaining from the stage about their own title."

Even the street names, business names, and the characters' last names of Stranger Than Fiction are significant – Crick, Pascal, Eiffel, Escher, Banneker, Kronecker, Cayly, etc. are all puns on mathematicians who focused on the innate order of things. The invitation is to ask what is beyond the symmetry of things.

Stranger Than Fiction meets even its most formidable challenge - making the ending nail-biting and moving after such surreal content. But the ultimate message of the film seems a little trite if it is supposedly coming from a groundbreaking author. Like the glimpses of Eiffel's book, we are given impressive mountains of style but little substance. As the film doesn't press the strengths forcefully by admitting in so many words what it is getting at, there is a chance you may not bother with the subtleties - in which case it adds up to very little.

A superb testament to inventiveness and worthy of awards in many different categories, Stranger Than Fiction somehow falls short of being a masterpiece.

Was the above comment useful to you?
more (453 total)

Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Death vs a Masterpiece of a Novel ?!?? mypcforums
FAVOURITE SCENE/ QUOTE FROM THE MOVIE! GreenGobstopper
Did nobody else find this completely *beep* up? (Spoilers) TheGuardian_devil
The circular motif? maxwellj-1
This movie makes me want to write PaintedVelvet
Not once did anyone question WHY this was happening stick500
more

Recommendations

If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
- - - - -
The Number 23 Candy Karakter Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train The Fugitive
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
IMDb User Rating:
Show more recommendations

Related Links

Full cast and crew Company credits External reviews
News articles IMDb Comedy section IMDb USA section
Add this title to MyMovies

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.