Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction

Title: Stranger Than Fiction
Out of Ten: 10
See it: In the Theatre, ASAP
Reminds me of: Adaptation
DVD Worthy: Absolutely

I was finally able to catch Stranger Than Fiction, one of the best films I've seen since Adaptation. I expected a lot from the movie, and I was surprised to walk away impressed by those expectations being surpassed. Often my hopes are raised and dashed, I feel lucky to look forward to a movie that turns out only "OK", and yet I can't help but feel the trailers did no justice in preparing me for what I experienced. Simultaneously, they set me up perfectly for the ride, which I may talk about in the review's spoiler section. This is definitely a Theatre Worthy title, so prepare to waste twenty bucks on popcorn and soda you would have spent a tenth of the price on to watch with the DVD.

Will Farrel , as Harold Crick, has always been funny, but I think he comes out in this one as more than a blunt humour man and someone who can articulate subtleties of dramatic comedy and express more emotion than Saturday Night Life allowed. Crick is the most boring character any great story could be written around. Even a boring story would find Crick a droll person to be written about, but the very boredom his life becomes the excitement that kept my enthralled throughout the story. Harold Crick is an IRS agent with no sense of humour, no hobbies, no love-life, and only one friend, who is also a (slightly less) boring IRS agent. The man is so beyond humdrum that he goes to bed nightly at 11:13 precisely and his favorite word is "integer." Wow.

Surprisingly, a writer of good stature found value in writing a story about Harold Crick, and Key Eiffel (Ema Thompson ) articulates the mundane enjoyably and colorfully. If this was a real author, I would have headed for the bookstore straight from the theatre. Quickly, as Harold becomes increasingly unbalanced and confused from the incessant narration of his own, otherwise uninteresting life, does the author foreshadow the impending death of the protagonist, who is traditionally well sheltered from the fear and benefit of being aware of such forewarning. Harold, who starts out the most boring and unimaginative of characters, now surpasses all other heroes by beating them at the game of being a character: he can surmise the next pages, like any reader. Unlike a reader, however, he can not flip to the last pages to get a preview of the end, and has no idea how his supposed death will occur or when.

The ratio between fate and will is not clear. Nor is the direction of the plot being driven by Eiffel predicting Crick's decisions or his life being miraculously controlled by her narrative really explained. Neither needs to be the victor, as it is irrelevant to the meta-plot. Seeking out the source of his life's narration is an obvious deviation from the story he takes place in, and the narration follows only those events of his life which coincide with portions of the book directly involving him in situations where he is present and narration is available for his actions. He has no knowledge of what happens between these times, of any other characters he may be unaware of, and the author does not know what her own character is up to between their odd encounters through her typewriter.

S P O I L E R W A R N I N G
.
.
.
.
.

"It's a comedy," is a line cut to the trailer, but is a bit misleading. The movie was hilarious from the start, and I rarely laugh out loud at a movie, especially in a theatre. I often get frustrated at others for doing so. I did not hold back for this one. Even before the first line of ominous narration, the life of Harold Crick was very funny. His reactions and attempts at rationalizing and dealing with the events became hilarious. Firstly, this story is a drama and a good drama implies both comedy and tragedy. Harold Crick must die. I didn't realize I had stopped laughing until I paused in the middle of the movie to realize how more intense it was becoming. Farrel's performance shone here and as he wrestled for his life against his fate, he had to decide if he would follow it. No, I do not know if he was fated or decided to do step in front of the bus.

As the consensus of the knowledgeable characters becomes the death of Harold Crick, now known as both a character in the great author's greatest novel and as a living, breathing, crying man, fate appears to control the scene and the questions seems to be answered. The story seems to be ready to end with dignity, meaning, and grace.

Then she adds a crappy woke-up-in-the-hospital-bed ending.

This was the first point where I was disappointed in the movie. I agreed, with the characters, that Harold Crick must die. It was the only way the movie could end. Anything else, no matter how bad I may have felt for him, would simply do the story and the world an injustice. I shook my head in distaste for a fantastic story tainted with guilt by the writer. Yet, almost as immediately as I felt this sadness for the movie being ruined, it saved itself and became more and greater that I had hoped. Fate was not for Harold Crick to step in front of that bus, because Harold Crick had all the knowledge in the world that he would do so, and that he would die when he did. Harold Crick chose to step onto the road and be killed by a bus. A man who willingly faced his own death with bravery deserves to live, don't you think? Suddenly the entire story was open to reinterpretation as we can realize that every element, including the meta-plot around the hypothetical book's plot, was an active and participating element in her book.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction.

The whole thing with the watch seemed weird.