Stranger Than Fiction

The ending may be mush, but the rest has surprising bite.

There just isn't enough wit or style or verve to pull it off. It takes a great premise and then not only fails to run with it, but also fails to go absolutely anywhere with it at all.

Stranger Than Fiction never rises above its eye-catching premise, ending up as nothing more than a great idea with absolutely nowhere to go.

An uncommonly plastic bit of Hallmark sentiment-mongering, with exactly the kind of New Age psychobabble ending youâ(TM)d expect.

Ferrell rules in this film. I take back my words of prejudice. This is the smartest film in town.

Screenwriter Zach Helm's comedy has some quirky points, but it's very sugary and sentimental, and feeble compared to the work of those who have done the same sort of thing better: Woody Allen or Charlie Kaufman.

There’s more than a touch of Charlie Kaufman absurdity to Zach Helm’s screenplay but it’s warmer and less caustic in the way it uses fantasy to plumb human emotions and examines the nature of storytelling.

Helm's strong script is aided by superb direction from Marc Forster and a top-notch cast.

The manic spirit of Preston Sturges has a hold of this voyage of self-discovery that's packed with laughs and brilliant performances. Thompson in particular hasn't been this inspired for a long time.

"It's not the best piece of English literature of the last ten years," Dustin Hoffman says of Emma Thompson's newest novel, "but it's not bad." That just about sums up Stranger Than Fiction, too.