Stranger Than Fiction

Theatrical Release Date: 2006 11 10 (USA)

UPC: 043396154070

Studio: Sony Pictures

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Brief Nudity, Adult Situations, Adult Language, Adult Humor, Sexual Situations]

Summary: A socially isolated IRS agent whose every move is documented by a disembodied female voice discovers that his life is the subject of a book currently being written by a best-selling author, whose creative block has stunted her repeated efforts to kill him off, in a quirky fantasy comedy written by Hollywood hot property Zach Helm and directed by Finding Neverland's Marc Forester. Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) lives a life of solitude. Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) can't seem to find a way to finish her latest book. Though Harold and Kay have never actually met, their fates are about to become intertwined in a most unusual manner. With her publishers growing increasingly impatient with her apparent inability to put the finishing touches on her latest novel, Kay is assigned a new assistant whose task it is to help provide the creative push needed to get her book finished and into the hands of her many eager fans. The subject of Kay's novel is a lonely and despairing IRS agent named Harold Crick, who believes that his life has lost any real meaning. As Kay continues to weave Harold's woeful tale without realizing that her protagonist is actually a living human being unable to concentrate on his life and career due to the constant interference of the narrator who inexplicably seems to anticipate his every move and read his every thought, her continued efforts to kill her perplexed subject finally provide him with the incentive needed to fully experience life by seeking out the source of the voice that plagues him. Penned by the screenwriter named by Variety magazine as one of the "Top Ten Writers to Watch" and who was also included in Esquire magazine's "Best and Brightest" list of 2004, Stranger Than Fiction features supporting performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Film Presented – Toronto International Film Festival Film Presented – null Best Original Screenplay – National Board of Review Best Screenplay – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actress – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Best Supporting British Actress – London Film Critics Association Best Picture - Musical or Comedy – Satellite Awards Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Satellite Awards Best Original Screenplay – Writers Guild of America Film Presented – London Film Festival Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Deleted scenes
Funny on-set moments
Multiple behind the scenes featurette

Stranger Than Fiction

Format: DVD

Release Date: 02/27/2007

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DDS Dolby Digital Surround

Runtime: 113 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: English,French

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Stranger Than Fiction
1. Before Wednesday [3:43]
2. Extraordinary Day [5:36]
3. The Baker [4:03]
4. Talking Leaps [4:44]
5. Trees Are Trees [2:03]
6. Alarming News [4:30]
7. Little Did He Know [3:31]
8. Transit Encounter [3:33]
9. Ruling Out the Possibilities [3:15]
10. Comedy or Tragedy [5:17]
11. Harold the Tax Guy [1:26]
12. Milk and Cookies [5:47]
13. Harold's Day Off [4:54]
14. The Plot Thickens [4:18]
15. Musical Conviction [4:13]
16. Breaking the Protocol [3:30]
17. Making Music [3:57]
18. Significant Moments [3:38]
19. Writer's Resolution [4:37]
20. Critical Call [5:39]
21. Avoiding Chance [2:25]
22. Poetic Masterpiece [3:14]
23. Entertaining Ideas [4:05]
24. Sharing Secrets [2:30]
25. Unthinkable Error [3:35]
26. Life Choices [3:33]
27. Making Sense [1:22]
28. Finding Cookies [9:42]

Cammila Collar

It's a great movie no matter how you look at it, but it's hard not to notice that Stranger Than Fiction is the best movie Charlie Kaufman never wrote. The story-within-a-story-within-a-story premise smacks of the ?ber-meta style Kaufman brought to Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- IRS agent Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) awakens one day to find that he is, in fact, the main character in a novel being written by an eccentric, chain-smoking writer named Karen Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson. This is where we would expect the narrative to start nose-diving towards meta-land; the movie's story is Harold's story, but Harold's story is apparently Karen's story. If Charlie Kaufman were writing the script, this is where he himself would make his appearance because the whole thing is, in fact, the screenwriter's story. But lucky for us, Stranger Than Fiction's actual writer, Zach Helm, hits the ball out of the park on this point: he stays out of it. The film turns out to be a classic (classic meaning enduring, not meaning a pseudonym for trite) tale about the self-imprisonment of modern-life, about the value of companionship, and about the joy of infinite possibilities. The wild premise -- while always entertaining -- eventually takes a back seat to Crick and his existential adventure. This is another area where the film bears a strong resemblance to a Kaufman project, as Will Ferrell's uncharacteristically sensitive, intimate performance is very reminiscent of the way funnyman Jim Carrey did the same thing in Eternal Sunshine. Watching a loud-mouthed comedic actor keep it "reeled-in" has novelty, but Ferrell does a lot more than that here. He proves he can really act, portraying Harold with more than enough love and authenticity for us to pull for him as he falls in love with the feisty, anti-establishment pastry chef he's auditing (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Harold pursuing a romance with the ill-tempered baker becomes just one of many ways in which he tries to make the story of his life into something he's proud of. It may sound hard to believe, but as the movie progresses, the fact that key elements of Harold's life are being decided by they keystrokes of a reclusive novelist becomes fairly easy to accept. By the end, Harold's sweet, unpretentious, and extremely poignant story doesn't belong to screenwriter Zach Helm or even to Karen Eiffel, it's just Harold's and, by extension, ours. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Lindsay Doran  Producer 
Roger Neill  Composer (Music Score) 
Joe Drake  Executive Producer 
Marc Forster  Director 
Eric Kopeloff  Executive Producer 
Nathan Kahane  Executive Producer 
Brian Reitzell  Composer (Music Score) 
Zach Helm  Screenwriter 
Britt Daniel  Composer (Music Score) 
Will Ferrell  Actor 
Maggie Gyllenhaal  Actor 
Dustin Hoffman  Actor 
Queen Latifah  Actor 
Emma Thompson  Actor 
Tony Hale  Actor 
Tom Hulce  Actor 
Linda Hunt  Actor 
William Dick  Actor 
Guy Massey  Actor 
Martha Espinoza  Actor 
T.J. Jagodowski  Actor 
Peter Grosz  Actor 
Ricky Adams  Actor 
Christian Stolte  Actor 
Denise Hughes  Actor 
Peggy Roeder  Actor 
Tonray Ho  Actor 
Danny Rhodes  Actor 
Helen Young  Actor 
David Pompeii  Actor 
Linara Washington  Actor 
Larry Neumann Jr.  Actor 
John Mohrlein  Actor 
Bruce Jarchow  Actor 
Kristin Chenoweth  Actor 
Bradley Mott  Actor 
John Watson, Sr.  Actor 
David Wiegers  Actor 
Jarret Sleeper  Actor 
Karen Lloyd  Actor 
Keith Kupferer  Actor 
Danny McCarthy  Actor 
Tab Baker  Actor 
Mark Buettner  Actor 
Christian Young  Actor 
Arraon Hixson  Actor 
Bryan Kelly  Actor 
Whitney Sneed  Actor 
Ray Kurut  Actor 
Michael Cook  Actor 
Cheryl Lynn Bruce  Actor 
Chet Dubowski  Actor 
Oran "Juice" Jones  Actor 
Jordan Keller  Actor 
Herb Lichtenstein  Actor 
Stacey Jackson  Actor 
Jordan Teplitz  Actor 
Ricardo Guiterrez  Actor 
James Mazza  Actor 
Oscar Roxas  Actor 
Nadiera Bost  Actor 
Sandra Marquez  Actor 
Lacy Coil  Actor 
Will Clinger  Actor 
Albert Samuels  Actor 
Frank Caeti  Actor 
Andrew Rothenberg  Actor 
Rengin Altay  Actor 
Lucinda Kemp  Actor 
Donna Watkins  Actor 
Julien Heron  Actor 
Bob Papenbrook  Actor 
Mike McColl  Actor 

Country: USA