Stranger Than Fiction
A date movie for writers--how often do those come along?
Despite a mutual dislike of Will Ferrell, my husband and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction last night. We came home smiling. This charming fantasy centers on stuffy IRS agent Harold Crick (Ferrell), who suddenly starts hearing a woman's voice narrating his joyless, regimented life. Narrating? She's writing his life, and her voiceover reveals that Harold is destined to die--soon.
Favorite bits:
- Harold consulting an English professor (played by Dustin Hoffman), who tries to identify the genre of book Harold is starring in.
- Harold keeping a meticulous tally of events to determine if he's living a comedy or a tragedy.
- The shy, bumbling, yet ecstatic romance that blooms between Harold and a free-spirited baker he's supposed to be auditing.
- "You're never too old for Space Camp."
It wasn't a perfect movie. I could've done without the anthropomorphized wristwatch, for one thing (it could've served the same function without a personality), and I never quite believed that the writer (played by Emma Thompson) was the exalted literary figure she was purported to be, given the often syrupy nature of her narration and plot twists. Nor did I believe that the ending she concocted for Harold's story deserved the worshipful awe given to it by the movie's characters. The "masterpiece" ending, supposedly too brilliant to change even though it might cost the real Harold his life, looked dopey and contrived as hell to me.
But those quibbles didn't spoil the movie for me. It's sweet, smart, good-hearted and lovable--the perfect escape if
NaNoWriMo is making you crazy.
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wordswoman) wrote,
