So-so, actually

Honestly, before I took up this beat I had no idea how many new movies aren’t that great and aren’t truly terrible but are simply so-so and when it comes to so-so Stranger Than Fiction is just so so-so, which is a shame because: a) I’d been looking forward to it and b) I have better things to do with my time, like buy goats for people for Christmas and then figure out how to wrap them.

I’d been looking forward to it not only because the conceit sounded wonderfully neat (it’s about a guy who hears his life being narrated to him) but also because it’s got Emma Thompson in it. I know there’s a piety to her that gets some people’s backs up, but as an actress she can not only strip herself of all vanity in the most exquisite and extraordinary way (Howard’s End, Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility) but can also single-handedly almost save a film.