The Truth Can Sometimes Be ...

Saw Stranger Than Fiction on Friday. Normally I don't like Will Ferrell (except in SNL), but this one was good. He plays a guy whose life is mysteriously narrated by an author. Emma Thompson was brilliant as the eccentric artist who has writer's block and can't figure out how to kill her main character. Dustin Hoffman is almost the same character as his existential detective in I Heart Huckabees, but is still quirky and cool.

As I mentioned to a friend, while playing Taboo until 3 a.m., Will Ferrell's character reminded me a lot of J. Alfred Prufrock. He calculates life so exactly and has such a predictable routine, while people all around him are having fun and laughing. he knows death is imminent and feels he has to change his life somehow.

Still, you can't approach the film as if it were a serious commentary on life and death. There were some holes in the plot: Emma Thompson's mysterious narrative power is never explained, Will Ferrell's fate can easily be changed, and I doubt Harvard Law students live in dorms. But it was a good time.