review by the
wandering storytellerStranger than Fiction's
official website puts the movie's synopsis in perfect british understatement: THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A MAN NAMED HAROLD CRICK.
AND HIS WRISTWATCH.
But the movie is about so much more. Any writer, any introvert -- anyone with imagination, really -- would immediately emphatize with this film. It's not
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or closer still,
Adaptation, but Stranger than Fiction has its own appeal.
Harold Crick is an IRS agent -- contrary to popular belief, that doesn't mean he's evil; just... dry, and a little obsessive compulsive. Harold is a man of infinite numbers -- endless calculations and remarkably few words. He counts bathroom tiles, number of brush strokes when he cleans his teeth, even the tenths of a second it saves him when he walks to the bus stop. He is socially inept, ordinary-looking, in a job people loathe, with zero interpersonal skills.
He is a cardboard, a dud, a simple cog in the machine. Harold thinks his life has no point, and monotony pervades his everyday. All that changed, however, when one day, he began to hear a woman's voice narrating his life and innermost thoughts in alarmingly precise detail.
Harold's clock-like life turns upside down when he hears the narrator casually mention his imminent death. From that moment, he began a quest not only to stop the narrator from ending his life in the story, but to actually live the life he has always wanted.
The movie's formula is a familiar one: "live your life to the fullest" isn't exactly new, but it's always refreshing to remember. The fictional twist of living as a character in a book (or maybe the author is just 'reporting' what is actually happening?) has a lot of potential, although the plot wasn't as developed as say, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What really works in this film are the performances of the main actors.
Will Ferrel, playing the lead character, shows amazing restraint here -- which is exactly what is needed of him. He comes out bland, and common, and unremarkable, just your ordinary forgettable man... until he starts fighting for his dreary life. Suddenly, his vulnerability and mortality make us root for him.
I have never liked Maggie Gyllenhaal, not because she's a bad actress, but simply because I have never noticed her. She tends to be overlooked due to the other luminous (or more beautiful/more famous) actresses she works with in her movies. This movie completely changes that. Stranger than Fiction is Gyllenhaal's
Pretty Woman, and with good reason -- she is the perfect complement to Ferrel's character. Despite all initial cynicism, they come out cute and lovable.
Emma Thomson is brilliant as the distracted/tortured author who is beseiged by her inability to kill Harold. Her voice comes out languid and inevitable -- powers she possess simply because she's the one writing the story.
While the movie is endearing and enjoyable, it is not the kind of film that will be frequently mentioned in film classes and studied for its innovative concepts or superb techniques. It is a fun movie, even a surprisingly pleasant date movie - all in all a good way to spend two hours of your time.
What strikes me most, however, is how Stranger than Fiction parallels the story of all people in respect to God.
We are all living dreary lives with the inevitability of death hanging over our heads. It doesn't matter whether you're a farmer or a rock star, the President of the land or a saleswoman no different from thousands of others, we are all living incomplete lives -- lives with holes so big we end up plugging ineffectively at them. We are, in essence, all Harold Cricks -- good at what we do but ultimately living pointless lives.
Until a booming Voice from heaven comes, of course, maybe though a tragedy in the family, a life-changing event, or a strong emotional upheaval. Or maybe it's a quiet whisper -- a passage from a book, a flower perfect in the sun, an ordinary discussion, a lingering question we ask ourselves. But the Voice always comes -- like Harold Crick, we jerk awake from our stupor once we hear the author of our lives. Our reactions may be different, others may pursue the Voice, ignore it completely or even run away from it. But at one point in our lives, we are all made aware of that Voice.
Our reaction dictates the rest of our lives and how we'll spend eternity. As literary theorist Professor Humphrey (Dustin Hoffman) advised Harold, our stories could either be a tragedy or a comedy. Bland as Harold was, he had enough sense to know that ignoring the Voice will bring his inevitable doom.
Like Harold, this story, this plot finds us -- even if we do nothing. It is a question with no escape. In the end, the choice is clear -- do we ignore this Voice, continue living our dreary lives, and in the end die tragically... or do we pursue it and find it despite all hardships, in the hope to live in a comedy?
