In the comedy "Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays an IRS auditor who suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to hes love-intrest, to his death.

Will Ferrell plays against many types in Marc Forster's charming meta-comedy "Stranger than Fiction." As Harold Crick, a bland IRS auditor who discovers, via a narrative voice in his head, that he is the subject of a novel, Ferrell is the straight man to Emma Thompson's brusquely sarcastic Kay Eiffel, the author of the book.

Even more surprising is the concept of Ferrell as the believable recipient of deep French kisses from a bohemian baker played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. He's not quite a sex symbol, but they do share a rather stirring scene.

It's only in his pairing with his third co-star, Dustin Hoffman, where our expectations of Ferrell are not contradicted; he's still the tall guy. Hoffman, who played an existential detective in another playful film with philosophical aspirations, David O. Russell's "I (Heart) Huckabees," is a literary detective of sorts, professor Jules Hilbert. Harold goes to the professor hoping he can explain or even identify the source of the voice in his head.

It hasn't occurred to Harold, a solid, by-the-numbers kind of guy, that he might be crazy, even though a psychiatrist (Linda Hunt) diagnoses him as schizophrenic (Hunt and Ferrell lob perfect comic pitch back and forth like a tennis ball). But he is concerned, because the narrator, whose assessments of what Harold might be thinking or doing at any given moment are remarkably acute, has mentioned that Harold Crick is about to die. Jules is about to dismiss him when Harold mentions the narrator's use the term "If he only knew" in relation the character of Harold Crick.

"If he only knew," Jules muses, sitting back in his chair, with a smile spreading across his face. "I taught a whole course in 'If he only knew' once."

He's hooked on Harold's dilemma, and by this point in the film, so was I.

This is a script filled with sublimely witty lines you don't anticipate and immediately want to hear again. First-time screenwriter Zach Helm is likely to be accused of being derivative of other films with similar themes, including everything writer Charlie Kaufman has done ("Adaptation," "Being John Malkovich" and of course, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," where funny guy Jim Carrey played straight man to another classy English dame with some Jane Austen on her resume).

Certainly there are a lot of similarities to Kaufman's smart, meta-fiction, but "Stranger than Fiction" never feels like a rip-off.

The movie was shot in Chicago, but Forster ("Finding Neverland," "Monster's Ball") made a conscious decision to keep Harold's city nameless and we mostly have no idea where we are. Harold's office and the wide boulevards feel like Washington, D.C. Gyllenhaal's baker lives in a brownstone apartment that conjures up New York, but her sensibility seems more Seattle.

The lack of an obvious setting gives the story a sort of universality, as well as the curious distance of a novel. The movie is telling us Harold Crick is a real man, not just a character, but watching him bound about in a world without familiar signposts, he remains enough of a character to us that we can see how he might have slipped into someone's fiction and vice versa.

That's no small feat of persuasion. Apologies to "Borat," but this might be the most cunning comedy of the year.

<b>TITLE: </b>"Stranger Than Fiction"<b>CAST: </b>Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah<b>DIRECTOR: </b>Marc Forster<b>RATED: </b>PG-13 (some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity)<b>GRADE: </b> 4 Stars (out of 5)