If reading is one of your pastimes, then “Stranger than Fiction” is the perfect movie for you to watch.
“Stranger than Fiction” intermixes fictional character Harold Crick with the real world.
Will Ferrell is the main character throughout most of the movie. As you watch Ferrell’s character, Crick, you hear narration read by a woman.
Crick is an IRS auditor who has no life. He is lonely and solely relies on his wristwatch to remind him of his every move. Living life is a routine and done in solitude.
Crick is a very meticulous, clean, compulsive and neurotic person who absolutely takes no risks. He is a man of infinite numbers and endless calculations. Every morning he counts his brush strokes while brushing his teeth. He always catches his bus at the same time, and he never takes his full 15-minute break at work.
Although this particular role is a more serious role for Ferrell, at times he is very entertaining with facial expressions. He doesn’t even have to say anything; his facial expressions alone are extremely hilarious.
Crick’s simple life is suddenly interrupted by a woman’s voice narrating his every move to the most precise detail. Crick thinks he’s going crazy because he’s the only one who can hear the woman’s voice. He becomes obsessed and paranoid after learning that his life will end in his imminent death. Crick tries to figure out who the woman’s voice is and seeks help from a literary theorist, Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). As the story unfolds, Crick realizes that he is the main character in a fiction story by author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who eventually realizes that Crick is not only fictional but a real life person living in society.
Eiffel is a novelist who is writing her latest fiction novel called “Death & Taxes,” which features Crick as the main character.
Eiffel is really good at acting like a writer. She has an incredible imagination, drinks and smokes, which naturally constitutes a typical writer.
However, Eiffel’s biggest problem is writer’s block. She hasn’t figured out a way of killing off her main character, Crick.
As Crick tries to change his destiny he makes drastic changes to his simple lifestyle. Crick begins to fully live life everyday. Crick buys an electric guitar and he takes time off of work.
He also pursues an unlikely romance with a free-spirited baker named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). I say unlikely because it is one of those relationships that you look at and think what the hell is she doing with that dorky guy?
As Crick experiences love and life, he is certain that his fate has changed. But it hasn’t, and he is out of time because Eiffel has just figured out how she will kill Crick.
Eiffel’s ending is so good that Crick accepts his destiny and waits for his imminent death graciously.
This in particular made me think of death hypothetically. I mean, how would I react to knowing that I was about to die?
Much like Crick I’d try to live my life happily enjoying those little moments that you treasure for a life time.
Finally, his day comes, but Eiffel changes the ending and keeps Crick alive. Instead of dying instantly, Crick gets hit by a bus and saves a young boy’s life. He becomes a hero and lives happily ever after with the love of his life Ana (Gyllenhaal).
The moral of the story, “Stranger than Fiction,” is we must live life every day to the fullest.