Film: 'Stranger Than Fiction' (2006)

Since the holiday extracts are mostly auto-biographical, I get to do a run of book and movie reviews in the alternate regular posts, which is awesome. It's lovely to be home, and to sleep and eat regularly, but it's not exactly inspiring. Returns are usually the ends of narratives after all, the denouement to a mystery or adventure. The word narrative, is the best way to segue into a fairly minimal chat about the movie 'Stranger Than Fiction', which we just recorded a fan commentary for over at Film Bin. Yes, the world has turned, and things have returned to normal. Job applications and research hover over the upcoming weeks, as do more recordings and writings on various subjects. To the point we shall go!

This is a toughie, and so as always the best place to start is to say I love 'Stranger Than Fiction'. Now, I didn't watch it for a long time because for some reason it scared me, but in preparing for it as a commentary that barrier was broken, and it is recognised for a wonder once again. It belongs in the extremely small set of movies given by 'Groundhog Day', 'The Truman Show' and 'Stranger Than Fiction', all films which act as restrained high-concept vehicles for previously wacky comedic performers, but which also have very deep souls and life-affirming properties. We couldn't think of any more examples during the commentary, so if any of you do then please let me know.

'Stranger Than Fiction', bizarrely made by the director of 'Quantum of Solace' and 'The Kite Runner', is high concept indeed. It's about an Internal Revenue Service auditor called Harold Crick, who has no life and is on autopilot, and who begins to hear a narrator describing his life as that of the lead character in her book, who is very soon to die. From there we follow Crick, a superbly restrained Will Ferrell, as he tangles with the consequences of this revelation, the ongoing narration, the advice of a literature professor played by Dustin Hoffman, and eventually his writer herself, the brilliant Emma Thompson. It's a fascinating and quirky film, and one that defies categorization. If there's anything I love, it is a narrative which defies falling into any genre. It's also funnier than you think it will be, and features Maggie Gyllenhaal (Swedish nobility) and Queen Latifah (not Swedish nobility) in supporting roles.

This is one of those films that I wouldn't want to detail the plot of in any depth as it shouldn't be spoilt. There are certainly people who will hate it, and people who will love it, unlike the universally loved 'Groundhog Day'. The visual design is striking if a little stark, and the sheer initial disconnectedness of the characters from their environment can be very offputting. It is the same disconnectedness that we see all around us, an abstraction into the media world instead of the physical world. It may not be dangerous, but it is certainly a waste of life-time. It's also a major point of the character arcs for both Crick and his author, an extremely pertinent one.

Without going into plot, one of the most interesting things about this film is that it averts the romantic comedy pretext you think is going to resolve the movie and instead ends in an intelligent moral dilemma, which doesn't resolve in the easiest possible way. Nothing in this film resolves in that easy way; It's refreshing, it is thought-provoking, and we do see Dustin Hoffman jump into a swimming pool. If that doesn't sell you, then I don't know what would without going into details. The only outstanding question that I really want to think about at length outside this entry, and will on repeated viewings, is what the story Emma Thompson's character actually is writing is about, as if it does correspond to the events of Harold's life in this film then it would be truly crazy and strange. That's the real question in retrospect.

It's fun to re-watch and re-read the good things in my library. I wonder why I stopped?

O.