Will Ferrell apparently has something to prove. After box office success with such modern classics as Old School and Anchorman and the soon to be TBS Christmas fixture Elf, Ferrell takes the Jim Carrey route and goes for something a little more dry and a little more serious. Very little.

Stranger Than Fiction is not your average narrative film. Usually narratives involve the main character’s story being told by a relative, close friend, or often by themselves in flashback fashion. Sometimes narratives involve a deep, commanding voice from the likes of James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman to give the film an underlining serious tone. These narrators (or ‘hosts’ as I like to call them) weave emotions and events together to create tales of triumph or tales of despair that are worthy of our viewing. In Stranger Than Fiction, our host is English novelist, Kay Eiffel (embodied by Emma Thompson). She’s been working extremely hard to tell us the saga of a fictional New York resident by the name of Harold Crick (Will Ferrell). Eiffel created Crick with plans of revealing to us a life-changing moment in his existence, along with a new girlfriend, and eventually his death. The only thing standing in the way of finishing her career-defining novel is ironically Harold Crick himself. What Eiffel is unaware of is that the character she is planning to kill is no character at all. He’s as real as you or me and he can hear everything Kay Eiffel says, including his own demise. Unfortunately for Eiffel and her publishing company, Harold Crick isn’t ready to die.

With a cast of Oscar winners and nominees including Emma Thompson (won for Sense and Sensibility and Howard’s End), Dustin Hoffman (won for Rainman and Kramer vs. Kramer), and Queen Latifah (nominated for Chicago), Will Ferrell manages to fit right in. Ferrell is mostly known for his portrayals of laughable alcoholics and lovable eccentrics, but he can surprisingly play normal also. He was able to make me laugh without falling on his face or creating the most absurd sound bytes. Almost like it was on accident. His dead-on reactions to the ‘mysterious’ voice following him around is awfully close to what anyone of us would do in the same situation, if one ever arose. He makes them believable when they can easily be extra-cartoonish.

The true star in this movie is the novelist/narrator herself, Emma Thompson. This chain-smoking, unorthodox writer comes up with the most outrageous ways to create an ending for her doomed character. She takes a tour of death to find inspirations for ending a fictional life, but time and time again she fails. Thompson masters the emotions and mannerisms of a world-famous novelist who is plagued with a fatal case of good ol’ writer’s block to the point that you feel she is like this in real life. If I were to ever run into her on the streets, my knee-jerk reaction would be to tell her how I would kill off Harold Crick. Then she would sign a quick autograph before she caught the nearest cab in my opposite direction.

Anyone expecting a traditional Will Ferrell comedy will probably be bored, since this film lacks the back-to-back punchlines he’s accustomed to being apart of. However, this film is hilarious and shouldn’t be passed over.