Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell

Almost True to Life

Some neighbors just buried their tragically-disabled daughter after tending for her hand and foot her entire abbreviated life.

Friends care for their non-ambulatory, non-speaking (but precocious) five-year-old who was severely burned in an accident.

These are the kinds of real-life sacrifices that people make for people they love or care about. And self-sacrifice is the theme of the quirky and original movie Stranger Than Fiction.

The movie concerns Harold Crick (Will Ferrell)… a gray IRS agent living a paper thin slice of life… who begins to hear in his head a narration of his life’s events.

The effect, of course, is very disconcerting for Crick, especially after the narrator (Emma Thompson) says as Harold waits for the bus, “little did he know that this seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.”

Crick goes to see a shrink (the woefully-underused Linda Hunt) who tells him that he’s schizophrenic and recommends a drug regimen.

But what if I really am hearing a narration, he asks, what would you suggest? She tells him to go see a literary specialist (Dustin Hoffman). Together they compile a list of likely authors. With imminent death hanging over him like a cloud, Crick’s life begins to take on some color as he rounds out his life, especially on the romantic front.

If this doesn’t sound like much of a movie, you’re right. Up until the last 10 minutes or so of the movie the depiction of Crick’s life seems so gray and ordinary you wonder if anything the filmmakers can do can possibly pay off.

The answer is yes. The climax is wonderfully moving and affecting. I’m going to own this movie.

Ferrell, believe it or not, brings nuance to the role. And the co-stars, which include Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Crick’s love interest) and Queen Latifah (as Thompson’s long-suffering assistant) are all quite good, Thompson especially so.

My only complaint is philosophical. The fact is, people make extraordinary daily sacrifices for others as a matter of course in the everyday lives. Everyone of us knows people like the ones I described above. Their sacrifice is so common it seems mundane. Crick’s act of sacrifice is spectacular, but momentary. But how would you depict people like my neighbors caring for their disabled child over a lifetime, whose devotion is so complete it seems ‘stranger than fiction’?

It may be impossible to make that movie. But I want desperately to one day see that harder, sadder, more meaningful, real, and joyful movie.

Stranger Than Fiction is rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.

DMR grades Stranger than Fiction as a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Stranger Than Fiction was downgraded a full grade because of all the elements that made it PG-13. Minus those elements I would have graded it as an A.

Monster House

Not Quite Scary Enough to be Really Therapeutic

DMR Gives Monster House a B

My Scoutmaster growing up had a little bit of Ol’ Nick in him and he liked to scare us. He was a cop and we made an annual field trip to the municipal jail. That put the fear of God into us! I remember a camping trip to an honest-to-Pete ghost town when he told us murder stories before forcing us to… one by one… touch the Victorian-era iron fence that surrounded the tiny weed-choked graveyard.

Ah, there’s something so therapeutic about a good scare when you’re 12.

I was hoping for something like that from Monster House. I anticipated a nice taut preteen scarefest from Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, the film’s executive producers. Instead I got something a little more slack from Jason Clark and Ryan Kavanaugh, who also shared executive producer’s credits.

The story takes place on Halloween and the day before. It opens when crazy Old Man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) falls dead (apparently) onto D.J. (Mitchel Musso) after coming unhinged in a fit of anger. D.J, who lives across the street, has allowed an object to trespass on Nebbercracker’s lawn and Nebbercracker really lets him have it. D.J., who had long watched the suspicious goings-on across the street, confesses to his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and the sophisticated love interest Jenny (Spencer Locke) that he’s killed the old man.

Kids in the neighborhood always knew about Nebbercracker and his home. No trike, no kite, no ball is safe anytime it gets near the sidewalk or the trees of the Nebbercracker home, Old Man Nebbercracker would see to that. More strangely still, even the grass seems to suck down mislaid objects.

The day before Halloween, D.J.’s parents (Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara) head for a dental convention leaving Zee (Maggie Gyllenhaal), an irresponsible babysitter in charge. With Old Man Nebbercracker apparently dead, the house seems to be coming viciously alive, just in time for trick or treaters.

Monster House makes use of the motion-capture technique used to such great effect in 2004's The Polar Express, which was directed by Zemeckis. Motion-capture involves actors putting on suits studded with sensors that digitize their movements, including even facial expressions. The intent is to give movement a more human-like look and to simplify the animation process.

But oddly it’s the ‘human interactions’ in the movie that are sometimes less than compelling. There’s a strangely stilted scene between D.J. and Chowder playing basketball early in the movie. Twelve’s an awkward age, but not that awkward.

That’s not the fault of the technology, of course, but of the writers. That scene is balanced by one in which D.J. and Chowder, competitive for Jenny’s attention, dash into the house to save her. Man if I had a nickel for every time I dreamed of saving a girl when I was 12!

Monster House is rated PG for “scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.”

DMR grades Monster House a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Monster House was graded straight up.