Stranger Than Fiction
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: November 10, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In a feat of performing imagination, Ferrell turns his usual extroversion inside out and his usual zaniness into precision, and makes it all work for him. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Stranger than Fiction is a wonderful cinematic experience - a welcome way to spend a chilly autumn evening. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Stranger Than Fiction is slicker than Kaufman's work - and Forster's direction is certainly more studio-ish than Kaufman collaborators Spike Jonze's or Michel Gondry's. But it's a clever idea, and you feel a little smarter watching the thing unfurl. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
What a thoughtful film this is, and how thought-stirring. Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction comes advertised as a romance, a comedy, a fantasy, and it is a little of all three, but it's really a fable, a "moral tale." Read full review
83
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Maybe the best thing about Stranger Than Fiction is the way it extracts unexpected work from underrated actors. Read full review
80
EmpireIan Freer
It might be Charlie Kaufman lite, but this is a great date movie for the discerning -- smart, ingenious and heartwarming. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
When Ferrell and Hoffman do their thing together, a charming bit of whimsy becomes something more. It becomes really, really funny. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This is a Ferrell you've never seen before, nailing a role that calls for breakneck humor in the final race against the clock and touching gravity in the love scenes with Gyllenhaal. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Amid all this metafictional hoopla lies the real heart of the movie, a tentative romance between Ferrell and a tax-withholding baker played with adorable prickliness by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
It has a nifty premise and outstanding performances from Ferrell, as the protagonist-in-progress, and Emma Thompson, as his blocked creator. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Foster finds the common ground on which his eclectic cast can meet (no small feat when they range from brassy Queen Latifah to "Arrested Development"'s deadpan Tony Hale) and keeps the story's sweetness from devolving into saccharine kitsch. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Stranger Than Fiction may not be the typical crowd-pleaser, but it's a sweet, funny, intelligent film that showcases just how much Ferrell can do, even when he's doing less. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
In a film that easily could have been cold or ironical, Ferrell provides the emotional thrust. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Intricately plotted without being contrived and exhilarating in its eccentricity. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
With a track record that stretches from "Monster's Ball" all the way to "Finding Neverland," Forster is clearly a director at ease with a wide range of material. He's found confection-land here, setting his beater on ready-whip and mixing the dough just fine. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Sometimes becomes too self-consciously clever, and it doesn't entirely resolve its own central dilemma. But it remains inventive and funny to the end, features fine performances from Will Ferrell and especially Emma Thompson. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
A more sensitive Ferrell in a script that plays like Charlie Kaufman Lite: that should send up breakthrough and Oscar signals. It doesn't quite, though. The movie is clever, but a little too pleased with its own clockwork intricacy. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Teems with ideas both literary and existential, which might make it unbearably precious, were it not redeemed by woozy charm and some serious acting from Will Ferrell. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
A refreshingly grown-up comedy, "Stranger" is a charming film that is unafraid to be low-key in ways that studio releases seldom are. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Pulls us along in a state of pleasant expectation.
70
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
While Stranger Than Fiction traffics in a bit of darkly funny existential anxiety, it also finds room for romantic fantasy and sentimental uplift. Read full review
70
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
An oddly sweet little tale, and easily Ferrell’s most enjoyable movie in recent memory. And even though his onscreen chemistry with Gyllenhaal fills me with murderous rage, this film goes a long way towards erasing the memory of his more obnoxious roles. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It's soon apparent that a closer model for this charming romantic comedy is "Bell, Book and Candle." The direction by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) is so fluffy it's easy to drift along and ignore the logical lapses. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeFore
In practice, "Fiction" isn't nearly that unusual. Less like "Adaptation" than a smarter version of "Click," the picture pleases while remaining unchallenging to a broad audience. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
A good movie but not a great one, Stranger Than Fiction is reminiscent of the films of Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) but lacks that writer's conceptual rigor and imaginative power. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
An eminently easy-to-watch piece of one-joke pop japery, is a movie that mimics the I'm-a-character-in-my-own-life metaphysical playfulness of "The Truman Show." Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Like Jim Carrey, Ferrell seems to think that the way to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor is to drain himself of everything that audiences love about him. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle Smith
A boldly original undertaking: It's the first movie ever to come up with the idea of remaking "The Truman Show." Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
With its twist, the movie leaps into a fresh realm of fantasy. But director Marc Forster and first-time screenwriter Zach Helm don't know what to do when they get there, and the film's greatest asset almost becomes its undoing. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJim Ridley
Stranger Than Fiction merely layers whimsy upon whimsy. As written, Harold Crick is no more convincing a human being than he is an IRS agent; Kay Eiffel's writing, supposedly good enough to inspire the career-long devotion of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman), sounds as dully declamatory as movie-trailer narration. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
There's a problem: This romance isn't developed enough to be truly satisfying -- it's fat-free SnackWell's when you want Godiva. It's not the original story we signed up for -- or thought we did. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Seems to suffer from low self-esteem. Why can't this movie see that it doesn't need a hulking meta-narrative apparatus to make us care about its story? It had us at hello--or would have, if not for the excess of high-concept trickery. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture is an overworked trifle: There's so much going on in it that it becomes hard to care about ANYTHING that's going on in it. The story in Stranger Than Fiction is stranger than fiction. But what good is it if it's unreadable? Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The bad news is that Ferrell's modestly likable performance is the ONLY good thing about this misguided comedy that's so tiresomely written, badly acted by a stellar cast and ploddingly directed (by art-house whiz Marc Forster) that it just never quite gets off the ground. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Watching the movie made me long for the big , risky ideas and entertainingly fearless filmmaking in David O. Russell's "I Heart Huckabees " and Spike Jonze's "Adaptation ," which Kaufman wrote. Both were similarly conceptual escapades, but they let it all hang out. Read full review
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