Playing a constipated nullity emphasizes those physical characteristics of Ferrell's — the ungainly height and the doughy body; the little blueberry eyes in the pancake face; the slow-to-ignite gaze — that become assets only when energized with a comic charge, whether manic or slow-and-unrelenting. Ferrell wouldn't have broken through to moviegoers in Old School (2003) if his character hadn't gone streaking and blared music from his muscle car. (When Ferrell comes at you full throttle, it's like standing in front of a guy popping a wheelie on a bulldozer.) Nor does Ferrell match up with, or complement, Gyllenhaal, whose style is naturalistically fluid and whose persona is sharp to the point of tartness. It's a mystery why they hired him for this script, unless it has something to do with those nasty numbers.

Forster does keep it moving along, and I liked the design, which situates the characters in massive, individually stylized interiors. But Forster, who also made Finding Neverland (2004), is becoming a master of the soggy-fanciful (that 1940s Hollywood specialty). Stranger Than Fiction feels like a Charlie Kaufman script gone damp to the point of mildew.