Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Copernicus is one of my favorite guys here at AICN. He and I don’t always see eye to eye on films, but I love that he still takes the time to write reviews for us even though his real-world work is in an entirely different field.

I haven’t had a chance to see this one yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Especially after such a positive reaction:

One of the best films I saw at the Toronto Film Festival this year was STRANGER THAN FICTION. And strangely enough, there was near-universal consensus from both the press and the public that this is a great movie --- surprising since often at festivals people would rather root for the indie underdog over the mainstream juggernaut.

By now nearly everyone has seen the trailer, so you know the premise -- Will Farrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who starts to hear the voice of a narrator in his head explain what he is doing and thinking. He seeks out an English professor (Dustin Hoffman) to help him determine whether or not he is a character in a story. Meanwhile, Crick starts to fall for one of his auditees -- bohemian baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Intercut with Crick's plight is the story of his puppet-master --- author Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is suffering from such a severe case of writer's block that her publisher has sent an assistant, Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), to ensure that she delivers the manuscript on time. Eventually, the stakes are raised when Harold learns that his mysterious narrator plans to kill him off.

A story this self-referential is Kaufmanesque, but the writer is newcomer Zach Helm. I don't know where he came from, but this script is so original that he's sure to develop a cult following. I can't wait for his next project, which he is directing in addition to writing, MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM. Although Helm didn't get to helm STRANGER THAN FICTION, the film is in the talented hands of Marc Forster (FINDING NEVERLAND, MONSTER'S BALL). Forster gives the film plenty of visual flourishes, but manages to keep the unbelievable story grounded enough in the characters for us to suspend our disbelief.

As you might have expected, with a cast like Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, the performances are outstanding. But the entire film rests on the shoulders of Will Farrell, who hits the perfect notes of earnestness and vulnerability in a largely dramatic role. Equal credit should go to Farrell and Forster, who is so great at focusing on character and pulling performances from unlikely sources that he managed to earn Catwoman herself an Oscar. If there is a downside to Farrell in the role, it doesn't come from his acting, it is just that I am so conditioned to bust out laughing every time I see his face that I have a hard time believing him as a boring tax man. There's still plenty of opportunity for Farrell to cut loose, though, and every time he nails the humor, even while preserving an undercurrent of desperation.

Even amidst this award-filled cast, Maggie Gyllenhaal stands out for her performance as the tax-dodging object of Harold Crick's affection. Here she's almost a Suicide Girls version of her more ditzy doppleganger, Kirsten Dunst. Sporting tattoos and a healthy disrespect for the establishment, she's a wayward intellectual who's found her calling making cookies and muffins. She's perfectly fearsome when crossed, but she there is an inner sweetness and outer charm to her character that Gyllenhall is able to switch on at will. While Gyllenhaal has been doing great work for years, she hasn't broken through to the point that, say the target audience of a Will Farrell movie, knows her by name. That won't be true for much longer.

One nagging problem with STRANGER THAN FICTION is the utter
implausibility of the idea -- how can Harold Crick be a real person, and yet at the same time have his life scripted by an author? Both the author and the character are suitably freaked out by the realization of each other's existence, yet neither asks the obvious question -- "Which one of us doesn't have free will?" Is the author simply clairvoyant, or is she basically a god that can dictate reality? And if she's a god, is she writing the other characters too? Despite the obvious (but unmentioned) implication that he's caught up in this paradox, Dustin's Hoffman's character reacts to the news that Eiffel is scripting Crick's life with not much more than indifference. In fact, Dustin's Hoffman's character ought to have dismissed Harold Crick as a raving lunatic. Still, like stories about time travel, this conceit is too juicy to ruin by saddling it with constraints from our own less fantastic reality.

STRANGER THAN FICTION also serves as commentary on the process of storytelling, and what authors and screenwriters can get away with in a mainstream movie. I won't reveal how it ends, but Kay Eiffel herself serves as proxy for the screenwriter as she struggles to decide between the more literary and meaningful tragic ending, and crowd-pleasing pandering of happily-ever-after. Even though much of the same ground was plowed in ADAPTATION, here the life-or-death tension adds another level of suspense, and an interesting ethical dilemma.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more well rounded movie this year -- STRANGER THAN FICTION has great acting, great direction, and great writing, but most of all it has one of the rarest traits in movies --- an original voice with something new to say.