Movie Monday October 17: Stranger Than Fiction

My pick for this week, Stranger Than Fiction, comes as a recommendation from a writing workshop I’m currently taking. This film is a great mashup of characters, genres, and overplayed writing tropes all wrapped up in a fantastical premise. It also answers the question: what would happen when a character meets their author?

**Warning, mild spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, what are you doing?**

Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a seemingly average man. He’s an IRS agent who’s life is broken down into numbers; his day is timed to the second. This monotonous routine is broken when an omniscient narrator somehow enters his head. In actuality, the voice is death-obsessed Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), an author struggling with writer’s block. She’s stuck on how to kill the main character in her next book, Harold Crick. Harold, meanwhile, hears from the narrator that he is soon going to die. He consults a literature professor on the recommendation of a psychiatrist. Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) goes about deciding what genre of story Harold is in and who the author could be. He picks apart Harold’s life, including his fledgling relationship with Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker whom he is auditing. When things go wrong with her, Harold begins to think he’s in a tragedy. After a near death experience, Jules is convinced Harold has lost control over his own life. Emboldened by this, Harold transforms his mundane life into one full of joy. He moves in with a work friend, takes guitar lessons, and even starts dating Ana. All of this makes him think he’s now in a comedy. Later he discovers that Karen is his author. When they meet, she’s overcome her blockage and has completed her outline. Harold reads it and decides that his death is a meaningful one. Karen, on the other hand, struggles with the realness of Harold and feels guilty. She’s faced with a decision: save Harold or save her masterpiece. Ultimately she decides that someone as selfless as Harold deserves a happy ending.

Stranger Than Fiction is a film with a bizarre premise but a very human story. It perfectly mixes magic with the everyday and tragedy with sprinkles of comedy. There’s also existentialism looming overhead, but the fantasy elements of the story help it not get bogged down. I’m not sure why I’ve never seen this movie till now, but I’ll definitely rewatch it. It’s a writer’s movie; it perfectly encapsulates the struggles we face and the emotions we feel.

The actors in this film give stellar performances, especially Will Ferrell. Though he’s known for comedy, he really shines in this role. Harold is such a grounded and serious character, but has emotional depth that lets Ferrell flex his acting chops. The cast has great chemistry no matter who’s paired up, especially Emma Thompson and Queen Latifah. Karen is such a strange and manic person and Latifah’s Penny adds a nice balance as her capable assistant. They both add a nice dose of strange comedy to an already strange film.

The film is a masterclass in literary structure. It utilizes a lot of writing and fiction tropes, like meet cutes, dramatic irony, and especially foreshadowing. It’s scattered throughout the movie, and it isn’t until the very end that the random details come together in a meaningful way. You could rewatch it several times and still find something new in the visuals and dialogue. 

Stranger Than Fiction, in my opinion, is a severely underrated film. The film has good reviews and won several awards, including two for writer Zach Helm. It could be the weird strange premise or the fact that Ferrell was trying to pivot from the over the top comedies he was known for, but I feel like it flew under the radar when first released. It should be considered one of Ferrell’s best performances, and Hoffman’s as well.

One scene that made me laugh: This isn’t necessarily a “haha” funny kind of film, but I always found myself chuckling when Dustin Hoffman was on the screen. The one I’d pick out, however, would be Jules’s initial meeting with Harold. It’s a bit ridiculous and sets the tone for the rest of their scenes.

One scene that made me cry: Hands down it has to be when Harold accepts his fate and goes about the next day with his usual routine. He already knows what’s going to happen and decides he’s okay with dying, even after reclaiming his life. He does get a happy ending, but it’s still sad.

I’d give Stranger Than Fiction 7.5 wrecking balls out of 10.