Ou est tu?

a part of me cringes when comedy superstars first play a 'take me seriously' lead in a drama. (i grimaced for most of adam sandler's "punch drunk love" and just couldn't shake my mental funny man picture of robin williams to dare watch "insomnia".) but my favorite anchorman, will ferrell, took on the deadpan irs agent harold crick in "stranger than fiction", and i was impressed with his gravity. anne thompson was fantastic, and i just love dustin hoffman. the plot itself was interesting - a guy finding himself in metafiction - and it was leagues better than charlie kaufman's "adaptation", whose 'i'm clever for cleverness' sake' story about a story was appallingly masturbatory. i love creativity and postmodernity; i'm just not in the camp of lauding the avant garde just because it's new. if it's new and it sucks, it still sucks. (i did like being john malkovich and loved eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.)

i don't want to spoil the movie, but i did think it lacked internal logic. the ending was less than satisfying, but 2 lines spoken by anne thompson's character saved the whole thing, in my opinion, or at least gave the plot a fighting chance to be plausible. i'm not totally scratching zach helm off my radar - in fact, i really want to watch the family movie he directed called "mr. magorium's wonder emporium".

more than anything about the film though, a song from it left a lasting impression on me.

"i go the whole wide world

i go the whole wide world

just to find her..."