dir. Marc Forster
Viewed on 2007-02-27
Rating: 6.5
Somewhere in the middle of watching this movie I wondered, "What would Charlie Kaufman have done with this story idea?" For one, I think Will Ferrell's character Harold Crick, a metronomic IRS auditor, might have gone a little crazier when he starts hearing novelist Kay Eiffel's (Emma Thompson's) voice in his head, narrating his life and announcing his impending death. Harold is already obsessive-compulsive, so it was hard to believe that he wouldn't have gone a little more off the deep end. Granted, it's more than justifiable that Harold acts the way he does because he's under the control of Eiffel's story. Still, I'd like to think Kaufman would've invented some way to introduce doubt into the whole premise of this movie, perhaps by making us wonder whether Harold was dreaming/hallucinating. Or maybe it would be Eiffel's hallucinations about one of her characters thinking he's real and hallucinating about an omniscient "author" controlling his life. Or maybe... well, you get the drift.
What I'm getting at is, the story was a good idea, especially for a romantic comedy, but it wasn't as ambitious as its premise allowed. Nevertheless, the movie is worth a look, and makes some interesting, if heavy-handed, points about art and sacrifice, and about facing death.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I just saw this, too, and completely agree that it would have been more interesting in the hands of Charlie Kaufman. It felt like a Kaufman ripoff, actually, or Kaufman gone mainstream. Too bad, because it was a very interesting premise and a touching story. I thought Emma Thompson was wonderful, and Maggie Gyllenhaal really bugged me (though usually I like her). She kind of ruined the movie for me.
"Kaufman gone mainstream" should be its tagline. Great way to describe it. I agree that Maggie Gyllenhaal was annoying, too, especially in the first half of the movie.
Post a Comment