Conor’s Review Blog

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie since I saw the trailer way back. I finally watched it on DVD and enjoyed every minute.

Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, one of the world’s most boring people. He works for the IRS, every day is identical, he is obsessed with counting and routine and nothing ever happens in his life. All of this is narrated to us by Emma Thompson. Suddenly, whilst brushing his teeth, he starts hearing the narration too.

Initially he thinks he is maybe going a little crazy, then he thinks he is being stalked. He consults a psychiatrist who tells him he has schizophrenia. All along, the narrator describes everything he is doing and thinking.

He goes to do an audit of a bakery run by the radiant Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is a free spirit who refuses to pay all her taxes as they fund the war machine. They clash but he finds himself deeply attracted to her. Bit by bit they start to fall for each other and Harold finally starts living.

Unfortunately for him, he is a character in Emma Thompson’s novel. She has had writers block for 10 years and is suffering badly. The publishers send an “assistant” to push her along. In all her novels, the hero dies and he problem is finding a way to kill Harold. At one point she narrates “Little did he know that this simple seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death”. Harold obviously gets quite upset about this!

He consults a professor of literature played by Dustin Hoffman on auto-pilot who tries to figure out if he is in a tragedy or comedy. Finally through a fluke, they figure out who the author is and Harold tries to contact her.

I won’t reveal any more but suffice to say, you are left hanging until very late to discover if Harold dies or not. Or whether he should!

There are many aspects to the movie which are “by the numbers” like uptight guy falling for hippie, art vs life etc etc but it all just hangs together beautifully. Well worth a watch (pun intended) ,