”You don’t understand that this isn’t a story to me, it’s my life! I want to live!”
The story about a writer confused with his subject of writing mostly become an interesting subject itself. Like in Adaptation (2002) or Ruby Sparks (2012). But it’s even more appealing when the character is already live, realizing that he might be a character from a story written by a writer he doesn’t know.
It’s Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), an IRS employee, who live his time-calculated life, that suddenly hear a British accent narrator running in his head. The narrator often describe what he is doing presently and often telling him the next thing would happen, even that later he’ll passed away. The future prediction told by the narrator scared Harold and makes him searching for outer help. After his visit to a psychiatrist, he knows that he doesn’t suffer mentally ill. So, he visits Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) who is a university literature professor. Jules helps him to recognize who is the narrator and what exactly is going on. Meanwhile, Harold have a job to audit Ana Pascal (Maggie Gylenhaal), a beautiful baker that seems to attract him. In another story, there’s a restless writer, Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who suffers a writer block and can’t help but to accept the assistance of Penny (Queen Latifah), sent by the publisher to help her write.
Perhaps Stranger Than Fiction could be a bit drama-heavier than what Marc Forster directed. Though I love how easy-to-digest the movie was, I couldn’t help but think that the ending could be a little longer and more dramatic than taking an easy way out to end the story. What I love other than its inspiring message (to appreciate little things that we might take for granted in our life), was Will Ferrell’s performance. Before I watched this, I saw Anchorman and I just don’t have anything I like from Ferrell’s part there. But then I watched him as Harold, and think that he probably mastered his role in Anchorman perfectly, because I successfully hated him. So, Ferrell performed very fitting as Harold.
Seeing him in his daily routinity, Harold look like an ordinary employee who loves his organized life. But the narrator somehow magnified his daily life and make him see that there’s something missing in his life other than doing the job well and responsible for it. I once read that book that tells you, ‘you are not your job, and your job is not necessarily your career’. For a lot of people, job is there to pay bills. For others, it also too fulfill dreams. Harold seem to be in the first category. And when he knows that his life could end, he begin to live life to the fullest. It’s an irony to know that when life gets brighter, your life also may end very soon.
Maggie Gylenhaal was a delight as a casual, easygoing and kind-hearted Ana. Her loose style seems to give a big contrast to Harold’s stiff and straight personality. I also love her story of making the world a better place by making bread and cookies, while she dropped out from Harvard as a law student.
Harold’s conversation with one of his co-worker was also interesting. “If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?” His friend answers, “That’s easy, I’d go to space camp. I’ve always wanted to go since I was nine.” Harold said, “Aren’t you too old to be in space camp?” His friend answers again, “You never too old to go to space camp, dude.”
There’s no arguing about Dustin Hoffman’s performance and Emma Thompson’s. Unfortunately, their well-known chemistry together only appeared for a while in this movie.
Stranger Than Fiction gives a good thinking about living life to the fullest and to not be trapped with daily activities. Though maybe there should be enough story to tell about Harold, to justify the ending. I also love the graphics calculating Harold’s activities. There’s no scenes wasted in this movie, even with the little kid and his father in the front. I think it’s a good thing to cast Will Ferrell as Harold, to give a different color. This movie is a light-drama with a little romantic side an inspiring note. I could definitely see myself watching this movie again in the future.
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