Stranger Than Fiction

People who know me best know that I've never grown out of the "What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?" stage of childhood. And, like the stereotypical child, I often change my mind based on what new and fun encounter I've had. In the past year and a half, I've wanted to be the following: an architect, a professor, a writer, a missionary, a third-world developer (specifically in public health), an entrepreneur, a cinematographer, a journalist, a pastry chef, and a Lego enthusiast (OK, maybe that last thing doesn't count as a job, but it certainly seems to take up a lot of time). And, of course, a lawyer. Some of those I can probably be at once (like, lawyer + writer + professor), but some are harder to fit together.

Basically, though, the common thread of all of these things is that something sparks my imagination. My father used to always have to remind my big sister that imitation was a form of flattery whenever I copied my big sister in what she did when we were little. But I still have the same tendency, and it *is* perhaps the highest praise I can give to something to say that I left wanting to do that thing for a living.

With that preface, I came out of the movie Stranger Than Fiction this weekend and wanted to be a novelist. When I come out of incredible plays, I want to be a director or actress. When I come out of exceptional movies, I want to writer screenplays or be a film editor. Stranger Than Fiction had neither of these effects on me, because in fact it wasn't an exceptional movie. It had a lot of flaws: an inability to commit (the cardinal sin of dramatic arts), and in general an intellectual feel that never quite expanded beyond the cerebral, and an aesthetic that was sometimes confusing. There were lots of wonderful details in the movie that were almost hidden - the quote around a bakery store's exterior, a throwaway background quote about the novelist's religious beliefs, fleeting visual references to books and authors throughout. If you do go see the movie, try to keep alert for these things, even as you get bombarded with silly animations of maps and calculations.

But at the same time, the movie *did* inspire me. Its premise is quite smart and intriguing. Artists create worlds and characters in order to manipulate them into something beautiful - but what if that beauty were actually destructive? It doesn't matter when they are just bits of printed words on paper, but as most artists and writers know, they often seem more separate from one's own creation. In a word, they seem more real. And so, what do you do then? Sacrifce them to the story and the beatury of Art, or do we recognize a purpose of Art other than to illuminate its own beauty? All these thoughts and more poured out of my head as I left the theater, feeling a little empty by the wishy-washy ending of the movie. The movie is about a novelist (or perhaps, more acurately, a tragedian), played by Emma Thompson, and the hero of her new novel who is, inexplicably, real. But - and here is the catch- the hero finds out that he is a character destined to die when he begins to hear the narration of the story in his head. So now he has to figure out what is going to happen to him, and if and how he can save his own life. Throw in a little romantic sideplot with Maggie Gyllenhaal (who is, by the way, delightful as a Harvard Law School student drop-out turned baker. yay!), and you've got pretty much all the important plot points down. Will Ferrell, as the bland anti-hero Harold Crick, seems a bit awkward containing his manic persona to play such a subdued and insecure character, but he does quite well. And we know there is more life bursting to get out from underneath his monotone and bewildered expression, which is important to win over the audience and make us care about his fate. Dustin Hoffman, as the literature professor Harold seeks out for guidance, has apparently perfected the likable but callous (and somewhat phoned-in) performance. See I [Heart] Huckabees and, (oh horror) Meet the Fockers for examples.

The film's biggest problem, however, is the same as Emma Thompson's character's: the ending. How do you end a film about a book character who is real? Unfortunately, you've only got two choices: tragedy and comedy. In the first you kill off Harold Crick, as Emma Thompson's character originally intended. And really, what movie with Will Ferrell as the main character is going to end with such a dramatic and terrible note? In the second, though, you destroy all the build-up of the movie, and end up with a bland cop-out. Or at least, it feels like a cop-out if you can't explain why it makes more sense - for the *story* - for Harold Crick to live. At the end of the day, this movie *is* fiction, and just saying, "oh, you shouldn't kill people" doesn't seem like enough. The script in Stranger Than Fiction makes some half-hearted and cursory attempts to explain a decision of comedy over tragedy, but they aren't explained well or even taken very seriously. Which leaves the film somewhat abrupt in its ending, with me sitting through the credits trying to figure out if there was a better ending out there than the one the film seemingly painted its way into.

All the film's weakness, though, I forgive, not because I think the movie is great, or even necessarily one that i would recommend to any movie goer (think: if you liked I [Heart] Huckabees, you'll probably like this, too). But I forgive the weaknesses of Stranger Than Fiction because I came out of that movie theater with a heightened awareness of the world around me and its beauty, and also a renewed conviction that I wanted to write about it. I came home and sat down in front of my computer and opened up an old story I started about a year ago and started working on it some more. Some new characters came out onto the page, ones I didn't know and didn't expect to meet. But I like them, these new characters of mine. And now, with Strange Than Fiction in the back of my head, I hope they survive the story.