Imagine you wake up one morning with a voice narrating your life. It’s talking about you, not to you, and no one else can hear it. That’s the rather unique problem facing Harold Crick, a problem magnified by his therapist who insists he’s going nuts. The problem suddenly escalates when Harold learns from his narrator that he’s going to die. At this point, the delightful Stranger Than Fiction has the idiosyncratic appeal of Charlie Kaufman and the techno-quirky dynamic of Douglas Adams: an Eternal Guide to the Spotless Galaxy if you like.

Will Ferrell’s singular capacity is ideally suited to Crick, a constrained IRS agent who learns of his plight around the time he falls in love with a woman he’s auditing (Gyllenhaal). More enlivened characters bounce off his deadpan delivery with relish, among them Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. He, Dr Jules Hilbert, is a professor of literature who helps Crick negotiate the story and, hopefully, avoid an unwanted ending. Thompson is author Kay Eiffel who is quite unaware that Crick even exists, much less the power she holds over him.

Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) keeps a sprightly pace as Crick’s situation deepens. There’s a delicious wit at play which doesn’t take all the chances that Kaufmann might, yet in exploring the human dilemma of uncertainty and choice Forster’s excellent comic timing shines. No more so then when Hilbert advises Crick to do nothing to propel the story. As he watches appalling daytime TV, frightened of changing channels in case it hastens his death, Crick’s house is attacked by a demolition gang. “Dramatic irony – it’ll fuck you every time,” retorts Hilbert.

// COLIN FRASER