The Prestige (2006) Review

rating: *****

the story: Rival magicians can't figure out that they have very different approaches to and goals for their craft.

review: I've reviewed The Prestige before, here, which you can read for yourself. It's one of those movies I'm constantly reevaluating, and it's absolutely worth the effort.  By this point, I'm perfectly willing to call it a classic.

Now, the whole reason I've struggled in this manner is that it's a film by Christopher Nolan, but unlike other film fans, this isn't the result of trying to keep up with Nolan's dizzying stories, but in comparing it to his other films themselves.  For a while, Memento was my favorite movie, having dislodged The Truman Show for that honor.  I value ambition and cleverness, but these are qualities that walk a dangerous line.  I used to view The Prestige as being the result of Nolan desperately trying to live up to the reputation of Memento.  I had a similar problem with Batman Begins, which I thought didn't chase that legacy enough.  The Dark Knight Returns was the point at which I began to realize Nolan himself wasn't that concerned with the need for some gimmick, but appreciating Nolan's abilities as mere storyteller took time.  By Tenet, I saw a director who was trying to make a point, and using all manner of tricks to achieve it.  I adore Interstellar, which hit me in a visceral way that had been absent from his other films.  Inception dazzled me most in its casting.  Dunkirk is a tour de force of tension without letting it ever get in the way, in all respects Nolan having learned his lesson from Memento.  Very early on I also went back and watched his first film, Following, which is all style.  Insomnia might have fallen into such a trap, but it's driven by two great performances, the first time Nolan allows his actors to leap ahead of him.

Integrating all his instincts is really Nolan's defining production technique.  Memento proved he could work with known actors, but it also trapped Guy Pearce into that role, and he's really never recovered since.  He's the Memento guy.  When The Prestige was released, it was most notable as starring Batman and Wolverine, so it was hardly going to suffer from known quantities.  And yet Hugh Jackman was himself in the early process of disentangling himself from one role, and hadn't yet accomplished it, so to view The Prestige, since Jackman is the lead actor, on its own terms, you need to not only separate it from Nolan, but from Wolverine, to let the story settle into itself.  For me, it was a process of letting its conclusions settle.  I always found it easiest to view the lead character as the most sympathetic, so Jackman's concluding thought ("It was the look on their faces.") that always stuck with me, and was the basis for which I would attempt to explain the movie to others, never mind myself.

It's a movie you have to understand in order to appreciate.  Bale's character doesn't have his story spelled out, not even by the ending.  Chronologically, we never really see a starting point.  We have to fill it in for ourselves.  Since the movie ends with Bale theoretically "winning," we are then to assume that maybe he was the good guy all along, and yet he really isn't.  He makes unfathomable sacrifices, and basically the whole point of the story is Jackman trying desperately to understand them, and he never can, even as he subsequently makes even more horrifying ones in order to do so.  In the end, it's because they have very different goals, and their approaches are defined by them.  For Bale, the act is its own reward, the knowledge of a trick well-performed.  For Jackman, the point is to entertain, and in order to derive any pleasure from pursuing such a craft, he needs to see his audience entertained.  It's a post-Gladiator world, folks.

Interpreting any of this through Nolan's need to live up to Memento is, in this context, absurd.  He knew very well what he was doing, and he was certainly not sending his audience any messages.  He was, if anything, telling us that how we interpret his films are as much our business as his in making them.  He knows what goes into them, and he certainly doesn't mind seeing how audiences react (he was to his detriment a proponent to reopening theaters during the pandemic), but regardless he's going to make movies the way he finds interesting, and he's now got a long career to show for it.  Studios might be willing to indulge him in scale, but if he really needed to, he could bring it back to intimate levels.  This is where his skill in casting comes in, his storytelling.  He doesn't need David Bowie (who this time I noticed actually sounds a lot like Pierce Brosnan), but it doesn't hurt to get him, either.  It doesn't hurt to include as subplot the perennially enigmatic Nicola Tesla, when anyone might have expected him to headline a Christopher Nolan film.  For Nolan, expect the unexpected, but don't expect that twist to be necessary.  That would be your mistake.

The result is a film only Nolan could have made (even if it's based on someone else's material).  The Prestige was released the same year as The Illusionist.  It used to be that I allowed this fact to distract from my enjoyment of it.  But I don't revisit Illusionist as obsessively as Prestige.  Sometimes having to work for it works in its favor.

The Prestige (2006) Review

rating: ****

the story: Rival magicians push each other to dangerous limits.

review: I’ve had, of all Christopher Nolan’s films, the most difficulty appreciating The Prestige. For me it’s the most desperate of his efforts.

Which is kind of the point.

Following Memento there was tremendous pressure to follow it up with something equally compelling. With his next two films, actually, next three films, including Batman Begins (but that’s another matter entirely), Nolan adapted the work of others rather than conjure his own magic. Insomnia adapted a Swedish film, The Prestige a book. Insomnia, in hindsight, seems to lack the typical Nolan ambition entirely. It is, rather, “merely” Nolan playing, for the first time, as a member of the Hollywood establishment, giving two well-known actors, Al Pacino and Robin Williams, roles that instantly defined that particular stage of their careers. It was atmospheric, but it was very much an actor’s showcase.

The Prestige is the bridge. It is both an actor’s showcase and an obvious return to Nolan’s own brand of magic. 

And deliberately so. I think he took the course he did to reach this point, and beyond it, quite deliberately. Nolan rose to prominence a few years after M. Night Shyamalan’s own breakthroughs. But Shyamalan was quickly, and all but permanently, dismissed as an obvious act, always, at least perceptually, relying on a twist ending to sell his concepts. Nolan didn’t want to be seen as a gimmick filmmaker. So he first stepped away, and then leaned heavily into it.

That’s the whole point of The Prestige, to put a big emphasis on the popular perception of his work.

The story of the movie revolves around rival magicians who very nearly stop at nothing to achieve their magic. In fact, terrible sacrifice, on both their behalves, are revealed as the story reaches its climax. And again, that’s the whole point, but then it’s also in the manner in which they do it, the lengths, and the contrasts between them, they are willing to go.

Which is to say, Nolan is using this film to convey to the audience that he knows what they expect of him, and he is not going to be what they think he is. At least until Inception, anyway, when he will weave his magic in an entirely different manner.

Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman couldn’t possibly do a better job representing all this. They are a new breed of actor, and this is the moment in which they cast off all doubt. They are surrounded by other remarkable performers: Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Piper Perabo, David Bowie, even Andy Serkis, back when he was still best known for motion-capture performances. It takes a bold director to build such a cast, which is itself part of the magic of this movie.

Watching Bale and Jackman duel, learning their awful secrets, Jackman’s final confession (“It was the look on their faces”), emphasizing all over again their contrasts, what motivated them, it’s like another parable, a message well beyond the magic: Is the sacrifice worth it? Or do you become, perhaps, a monster capable of rationalizing anything? 

So when Nolan is ready, four years later, to reveal his own brand of magic again, the stakes have been raised considerably. And he has been working out of that playbook ever since. That’s only possible if he’s willing to sacrifice what came before, that budding artist, the one everyone thought they had figured out. And, well, of course it’s sleight-of-hand.

So yeah, I dig it.

2006 Capsule Reviews

The Departed
rating: *****
review: A lot of people consider this inferior to Martin Scorsese's late '70s/early '80s prime (and/or Goodfellas), but for my money, the cast he puts together and the discipline Leonardo DiCaprio shows as the lead, in what I consider his best performance, more than justifies the Best Picture from the Oscars.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
rating: *****
review: In the whole series to date, even more than Curse of the Black Pearl, I think this one best exemplifies what these films have attempted to do, which is to produce a pure adventure.  In a lot of ways, Disney has attempted to duplicate this with its Avengers movies, and never quite succeeded.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
rating: *****
review: Will Ferrell's best solo film works as well as it does thanks not only to John C. Reilly but Sacha Baron Cohen.  Oh, and Amy Adams!  It's all the additional layers that aren't usually there in his movies that make it so memorable.

Hollywoodland
rating: *****
review: Here's Ben Affleck in one of his comeback roles, increasingly ironic in hindsight, playing Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves struggling with his career, years before Affleck himself jeopardizes that comeback by agreeing to become Batman.  Also a perfect noir role for technical lead Adrien Brody.

Superman Returns
rating: *****
review: This one doesn't, ah, fly with fans who want a straightforward, fun Superman adventure in the post-Donner/Reeve era, but it's ridiculously poetic, and probably the only time that's ever gonna happen.

World Trade Center
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone in his most unexpected movie ever, in which he unabashedly embraces patriotic rah-rah, and just lets a couple of firefighters survive a hellacious experience.  An emblem of that fleeting period where the culture hadn't totally disintegrated from the post-9/11 effect.

The Da Vinci Code
rating: *****
review: Most people only mocked Tom Hanks' hairdo as the film version of Dan Brown's hero from the wildly popular book, but...yeah.  The movie is pretty great.  It's a continuation of Ron Howard's filmmaking from A Beautiful Mind, and features a killer turn from Ian McKellen, which in hindsight was basically the last time he got to have one in the post-Lord of the Rings glow.

Children of Men
rating: *****
review: To my mind, this was a truly great year in film, and you can tell by how adventurous filmmakers got to be.  Earlier I described Superman Returns as poetic.  There's little other way to describe this one, too.

The Pink Panther
rating: ****
review: My dad is a devoted fan of the Peter Sellers films.  I think this Steve Martin update is a lovely ode and version of them.

We Are Marshall
rating: ****
review: Sports movies play by a familiar playbook.  This one stands out for me thanks to performances from Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie.

The Break-Up
rating: ****
review: I think the reception of this one comes down to expectations that it should have been a comedy, when it really just wanted to meditate on the painful realities some relationships take.  I think it's damn near a classic, and applaud Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as deserving far better for having appeared in it.

Lady in the Water
rating: ****
review: Here's another one that's been traditionally buried, as part of M. Night Shyamalan's perceived creative decline, his greatest overreach to that point.  I think it's lovely, and it's Paul Giamatti's last great cinematic showcase.

The Proposition
rating: ****
review: This one's been routinely celebrated as a tragedy of an Australian western, and it deserves it.

The Illusionist
rating: ****
review: Out of this and The Prestige, I've always found it more magical.

16 Blocks
rating: ****
review: Is this another pattern from 2006?  That it was a last chance to shine?  This might have been Bruce Willis's last great performance, at least to date.

Miami Vice
rating: ****
review: This one's been winning greater respect in recent years.  I think the reason it was received poorly originally was that it was seen as a Colin Farrell movie, which for a lot of people means something different than it does for me.  Farrell's performance in it is one of his most understated, and it perfectly works with the tone of the movie around it. 

Stranger Than Fiction
rating: ****
review: It's not hard to see this as Will Ferrell expecting to find his Truman Show, and maybe for other viewers it is, but already having long ago decided Truman Show is one of my all-time favorites, it's hard to compete.

The Prestige
rating: ****
review: It's not that it's hard to appreciate, it's that having Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman compete with each other obscures Christopher Nolan's instincts, so that the ambiguity that usually works so well almost becomes a stumbling block.  It's hard to root for one without feeling you ought to root against the other.  It's just odd.

Brick
rating: ****
review: Rian Johnson's breakthrough was also Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a updated noir that's enjoyable for its novelty alone.

Ask the Dust
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell again, in his most buoyant performance. 

Stick It
rating: ****
review: The range of movies I've seen from 2006 means I probably found material that I would otherwise not have seen or been able to appreciate.  I think this one is wonderful as a message about empowerment.

Candy
rating: ****
review: Heath Ledger in a harrowing study about addiction.

Marie Antoinette
rating: ****
review: Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of making a period drama look modern without being false about it, with an increasingly appealing Kirsten Dunst in perhaps her ideal showcase.

Casino Royale
rating: ****
review: The story here is Daniel Craig's sensational debut as James Bond.

Letters from Iwo Jima
rating: ****
review: Clint Eastwood's unexpected companion to Flags of Our Fathers instantly eclipsed it.

X-Men: The Last Stand
rating: ****
review: My favorite single X-Men film, which like a lot of the opinions you'll find here goes against the grain.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
rating: ****
review: A lot of people have a lot more experience with Steve Coogan.  If this remains a fairly isolated one for me, it feels like a pretty ideal one.  And, I've read the book.  This feels like a better way to preserve its story.

Mission: Impossible III
rating: ****
review: After the artistic flourishes of its predecessor, this was really the birth of the rest of the franchise.  Seems about right, given JJ Abrams had perfected spycraft with Alias on TV.

Accepted
rating: ****
review: I never really got into '80s youth comedies, but I imagine that this is probably as close as any update could get.

United 93
rating: ****
review: It can't be considered entertaining.  But it surely must be considered cathartic, in ways World Trade Center couldn't be, as a cinematic vision of 9/11.

A Good Year
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe in a fairly low-stakes drama, testing the waters for a more human persona.

Idiocracy
rating: ****
review: As Mike Judge's bid to follow up Office Space, which became a cult favorite, it's slowly reaching that status itself.  We'll see how close it gets.

The Fountain
rating: ****
review: Hugely artistic, hugely ambitious.  I personally think Aronofsky achieves this vision better in Noah, having perhaps realized his overreach.

Babel
rating: ****
review: A fascinating tapestry of a world filled with great complication.

The Pursuit of Happyness
rating: Will Smith in one of his most pure spotlights.
review:

Apocalypto
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson dips back into the past, with another vivid experience.

Over the Hedge
rating: ****
review: Like sports movies, animated flicks can all seem alike.  There's just stuff that speaks to me in this one, including Bruce Willis in one of his many voiceover roles.

The Good German
rating: ****
review: Many observers claim this is a Casablanca wannabe.  It's really not.  Casablanca isn't noir.  Good German is more like Bogart's other signature flick, The Maltese Falcon, as if its stakes were Casablanca's.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
rating: ***
review: This third entry in the series, which at the time seemed like a last gasp, is best viewed as Han's spotlight and debut, because that's what it became.

Pan's Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: I have no problem with the expansive artistry Guillermo del Toro brought to this, but it just seems as if it's wasted on a dour narrative.  Limits its appeal.

Nacho Libre
rating: ***
review: Jack Black doing his best to emulate the Will Ferrell playbook.

V for Vendetta
rating: ***
review: If there was much more appeal to this than the pleasure of Hugo Weaving's voice, it's be much easier to appreciate.

Snakes on a Plane
rating: ***
review: Instantly a cult sensation thanks to the wise call to amplify the Samuel L. Jackson-ness of its appeal.

Beerfest
rating: ***
review: Loses the goofy appeal of the previous two Broken Lizard films by trying too hard to be liked.

The Devil Wears Prada
rating: ***
review: This is right about the time Meryl Streep, and critics, started loving Meryl Streep too much, for material that really just called for her to be unlikable.

The Good Shepherd
rating: ***
review: As a metaphorical study of Robert De Niro's relationship with his father, this makes a ton of sense.  As a standalone product, it tries too hard.

Tideland
rating: ***
review: Easily the weirdest Terry Gilliam has ever been.  Surely that tells you enough?

Down in the Valley
rating: ***
review: Edward Norton in a low-key attempt to reprise his most familiar act.

Factory Girl
rating: ***
review: Sienna Miller in a fine spotlight and look at the world of Andy Warhol.

Don't Come Knocking
rating: ***
review: Sam Shepard in a looks behind the scenes of a fading western star's career.

Saw III
rating: ***
review: As a culmination point in this series, and probably the point where it was clear the series had a story to its monster, it's rewarding, for a rare horror series I've followed to any extent.

Happy Feet
rating: ***
review: It would probably have been more fun in Robin Williams had voiced the lead character, too.

Little Miss Sunshine
rating: ***
review: As subversive a feel-good movie is ever likely to be.

Blood Diamond
rating: ***
review: DiCaprio's Oscar chances in 2006 were dulled by the belief his performance here seriously competed with what he did in The Departed.

Ultraviolet
rating: **
review: This attempt at another franchise for Milla Jovovich thought it was a comic book movie.  In another two years, this would have been impossible.

Unaccompanied Minors
rating: **
review: This was all but a Tyler James Williams showcase, back when he still had a name for himself as star of Everybody Hates Chris.  In hindsight, if it had been his showcase, it could've helped out both the movie and the sitcom.

A Scanner Darkly
rating: **
review: Fascinating artistic experiment, at least in theory.  In hindsight seems like another of the soft attempts at a Robert Downey, Jr. reboot pre-Iron Man.

The Shaggy Dog
rating: **
review: Tim Allen (and hey! Robert Downey, Jr.!) in an excellent excuse for another voiceover performance.

The Guardian
rating: **
review: Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in a fairly standard drama.

Beowulf and Grendel
rating: **
review: Gerard Butler's calling card for 300.

Poseidon
rating: **
review: Standard catastrophe.

Zoom
rating: **
review: Tim Allen struggling to find a vehicle.

Cars
rating: **
review: There's two audiences for this Pixar flick.  One's the kid set, who'll embrace all the shiny cars.  The other's the adult set who doesn't care how saccharine this particular variation on the Pixar formula is.

Just My Luck
rating: **
review: Early Chris Pine, in the kind of role that made it so hard to discover him, a romantic second lead with no real nuance.

Haven
rating: **
review: Orlando Bloom in the kind of movie that sort of justified his fall from relevance.

American Dreamz
rating: **
review: An attempt to translate American Idol into a standard Hollywood product.

When A Stranger Calls
rating: **
review: A nice little light horror.

John Tucker Must Die
rating: **
review: A nice little young adult comedy.

One Night with the King
rating: *
review: Sort of proof of why religious movies generally aren't taken seriously dramatically.

Fantasy films 1982-2008

Today we're going to talk a little about these movies:

The Dark Crystal (1982)

 

The NeverEnding Story (1984)

 

Return to Oz (1985)

 

Legend (1985)

 

Labyrinth (1986)

 

The Princess Bride (1987)

 

Willow (1988)

 

Hellboy (2004)

 

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

 

The Fall (2008)

 

 

Today's discussion is about fantasy movies.  Obviously, it's a subject today that involves the Harry Potter films and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, but for my purposes these will be omitted so we can concentrate on the '80s push that helped make them possible, as well as a few other more recent entries.

 

Jim Henson's production offices got the ball rolling back during the first season of Saturday Night Live, where the concepts behind The Dark Crystal were first explored.  The same company later developed Labyrinth, which has been the standard memory of the '80s fantasy push, thanks in part to the participation of David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.  Younger fantasy fans had The NeverEnding Story and its sequel, while Return to Oz was an attempt to follow-up the iconic Wizard of Oz. 

 

Legend proved to be a bomb, and only took on cult status when Ridley Scott later released a director's cut.  It can be argued that Legend has the longest creative legacy.  Besides the look of Hellboy (which evokes Tim Curry's character in the movie), it can also be said to have inspired Pan's Labyrinth, the breakthrough critical success of Guillermo del Toro.  Willow might be said to be the first attempt at correcting the perceived mistakes of Legend.

 

Following the mixed fortunes of these early efforts, The Princess Bride went in an entirely different direction, downplaying the fantasy elements and instead focusing on the comedic potential of the humans involved.  The Fall later went further and made the whole thing dramatic.

 

It's interesting to think of these movies in relation to each other, whether or not the filmmakers did at the time they were being made.  Genre fans will no doubt have spent some time comparing them, or simply making preferences (that's the business of being a genre fan right there).  Some of them will no doubt have fallen through the cracks, so that unless you know they exist you might think the ones you do know are all you need to know.  Hollywood has never embraced fantasy as fully as other genres, which makes the '80s explosion all the more notable.  Yet, with the genre's fanciful elements, these films are often the source of remarkable creativity, and as such are capable of being among the most breathtaking movies you'll ever experience.







2006

Viewed/Ranked

1. The Departed
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
3. Hollywoodland
4. Superman Returns
5. World Trade Center
6. The Da Vinci Code
7. Children of Men
8. The Pink Panther
9. Brick
10. Lady in the Water
11. The Proposition
12. The Illusionist
13. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
14. Ask the Dust
15. Stranger Than Fiction
16. Candy
17. We Are Marshall
18. 16 Blocks
19. The Break-Up
20. Miami Vice
21. The Prestige
22. Marie Antoinette
23. Casino Royale
24. Letters from Iwo Jima
25. X-Men: The Last Stand
26. Mission: Impossible III
27. Accepted
28. United 93
29. Stick It
30. A Good Year
31. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
32. Idiocracy
33. The Fountain
34. Babel
35. The Pursuit of Happyness
36. The Good German
37. Pan's Labyrinth
38. Nacho Libre
39. V for Vendetta
40. Snakes on a Plane
41. Beerfest
42. The Devil Wears Prada
43. The Good Shepherd
44. Down in the Valley
45. Factory Girl
46. Over the Hedge
47. Don't Come Knocking
48. Saw III
49. Happy Feet
50. Little Miss Sunshine
51. Blood Diamond
52. Ultraviolet
53. Unaccompanied Minors
54. The Shaggy Dog
55. The Guardian
56. Beowulf and Grendel
57. Poseidon
58. Zoom
59. Cars
60. Just My Luck
61. Haven
62. American Dreamz
63. When a Stranger Calls
64. John Tucker Must Die
65. One Night with the King

Other Notable Releases

1. A Scanner Darkly
2. Apocalypto
3. The Black Dahlia
4. Borat
5. Clerks II
6. Crank
7. Dreamgirls
8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
9. Flags of Our Fathers
10. Flushed Away
11. Half Nelson
12. Hostel
13. Ice Age: The Meltdown
14. Idlewild
15. The Last King of Scotland
16. My Super Ex-Girlfriend
17. The Nativity Story
18. Night at the Museum
19. Notes on a Scandal
20. Open Season
21. The Queen
22. Rocky Balboa
23. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
24. Sherrybaby
25. Step Up
26. Thank You for Smoking
27. Tideland
28. Underworld: Evolution
29. Volver
30. Winter Passing

Just My Luck

**

directed by: Donald Petrie
starring: Lindsay Lohan, Chris Pine

Released in 2006.

This is a movie that you probably won't know off the bat.  It's Lindsay Lohan at the start of her fall from grace, though at no fault on the part of Just My Luck, and Chris Pine at the start of his ascent.

Lohan was a darling as a child actor, whether in The Parent Trap or Mean Girls.  When she grew up, like all child actors she suddenly realized that she wasn't a kid anymore, and that all the fame she'd had was based on very innocent roles, so she started to become that much less innocent in her real life.  Luck, however, is still very much an innocent kind of movie, not a Disney movie like so many of her previous projects but it might as well have been.  It's also one of her first roles where she was asked to carry the movie on her own merits, rather than depending on a studio or gimmick to do it for her.  Except it's very much a gimmick movie, too, as the title helps explain.

Lohan's character has all the luck in the world.  Pine's has none.  Through a movie magic fluke, they exchange luck, and the results for Lohan are supposed to be charmingly hilarious.  Except they end up being more embarrassing than charming, at least as anyone who expected something a little more adult from here at this point would have wanted.  Like I said, it's not Disney but it's very much Disney, and Lohan hasn't figured out what kind of actor she is outside of the Disney formula that to this point in her career has completely defined her.  This is not to say she's untalented, as people tended to start believing once she started asserting herself (the same thing that happened to Jennifer Lopez once she started a pop music career and dared to continue acting).  It's just, Luck may have been a poor choice.

For Pine, it's much the same kind of performance he had in Princess Diaries 2, the romantic lead who plays second fiddle to his more famous costar.  If people had cared about him at this point in his career, he might have gotten stuck in these roles, and not begun to explore his more edgy side, evidenced in Smokin' Aces and Star Trek (with a transition between the two in Bottle Shock).  So it's almost a good thing, as far as Pine's career goes, that Luck was luckless.

Just My Luck is not a bad film, but it's also not highly recommended, except to see Lohan and Pine in transition.

Stranger than Fiction

****

directed by: Marc Forster
starring: Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah

Released in 2006.

Will Ferrell is perhaps one of the more unlikely movie stars to emerge in the past ten years.  He's one of many comics to come from TV's Saturday Night Live, known for skits and characters.  Plenty of successful stars have come from SNL, but few of them have been able to sustain movie careers, and fewer still by basically keeping their SNL persona of inhabiting a new bizarre character with each movie appearance.  Ferrell rose to success with Elf and Anchorman, but he's managed to sustain his career by continuing much along the same lines.  When he deviates, he's less successful.  Usually when a comedic actor deviates, it's to try more serious material, as with Robin Williams and Jim Carrey.  Ferrell's Truman Show is called Stranger than Fiction, except it's very much Ferrell's version of the career move.  It's more surreal than real.

Essentially,  the movie is about Ferrell suddenly gaining a narrator in his life.  Now, clearly this is not something that happens in real life, unless someone has developed a psychological disorder.  That would be Ferrell's assumption as well, except he doesn't stop there.  He consults a literary expert (Dustin Hoffman), to figure out what the narration itself may signify given analysis.  Eventually Ferrell actually meets the writer who has been composing the narration (Emma Thompson).

The story also involves a romance for Ferrell (with Maggie Gyllenhaal), which is not something that typically happens in a serious way in a Will Ferrell movie.  Oddly, it is an undercurrent in a lot of his movies, but there it is.

It's Ferrell doing a Ferrell movie but in a completely different way.  Often in some of his smaller roles he's a character who is watching a greater story develop, reacting more than acting, but here it's Ferrell doing exactly that as the main character, and he plays the part to perfection, and it's a complete revelation.

For the other notable actors in the movie, I'll concentrate on Hoffman.  As celebrated as he was early in his career, Hoffman tends to be taken for granted these days, but I always find him fascinating.  He throws himself into all of his roles.  Someone else might have made this one a counterpoint to Ferrell's or even an outright skeptic, but Hoffman keeps the project firmly grounded in reality, where Thompson exists simply to give it the touch of class that people would either not have expected at all in a Will Ferrell movie, or what they would expect from one in which he's trying to be serious.  So it works both ways.

Stranger than Fiction isn't quite the triumph of The Truman Show, but it's certainly far more than a curiosity.  It will remain one of Ferrell's best movies probably for a long time to come, something to point to not just to demonstrate his range but what he can accomplish when he pushes his natural instincts to heir best and most unexpected limits.