November 25, 2009
What if someone tells you that you are going to die? Is it something to be scared of, or is it something to be proud of; knowing that you are the hero in a bestseller about your own life?
Spoiler:
Meet Harold Crick (Will Ferrell). He is a real-life character in his own life. He...( read more) is most fond of numbers, counting everything countable. He is a total mathematics freak. He has this unusual obsessive-compulsive attitude about things. He is a vehement follower of his own set of routines making his life a little less than usual, in short tedious.
Harold works for the American internal revenue. He collects and accounts taxes from business firms and reports to his office if anything is wrong, and so on. To push forward the comprehensibility of the nature of his occupation, people hate him and no further explanation why.
Living his seemingly boring life, everyday is like yesterday, and tomorrow is expected to be the same as yesterday and today. A voice of a woman narrates Harold?s life as it goes on every day. Until one day, Harold hears the voice of the narrator from his background. It seems so vividly odd that the omniscient narrator likes to tell what he is currently doing and has a vocabulary like that of a professional writer. Harold, in his most normal mind decides to consult a psychiatrist. The first finding tells that he might be suffering from schizophrenic psychological disorder. But he is normal enough to suffer from that condition. Next thing he does is to consult a literature expert. Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) is a well known literature extraordinaire. He has studied his passion for years and Harold thinks he might be the one to help him solve his problem since the voice he hears is somewhat literary-educated or might have gone in writing professionally. Dr. Hilbert, in his most earnest appeal decides to help Harold. With his coffee-quenching antic, he dabbles into reviewing Harold?s case and asks the latter to report to him often about the progression in his case.
It is one terrible day, an ordinary Wednesday when Harold hears the quite shocking news from the same voice that narrates his story. The voice said that he is going to die no sooner than soon.
If Harold is a math freak, unfortunately, he is a jerk when it comes to girls. In a bakery where he collects taxes, he meets a girl named Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). This tattooed revolutionary-thinking girl is the owner of the said bakery. She is a Harvard drop-out with a belief that she could make the world happy with baking cookies. And for Harold, it is true; because he instantly falls in love with her. Later we know that Ms. Pascal is falling in love with Harold too.
The other story:
Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) is a famous writer of fictional books. What makes her different is that she only writes tragedies. She has a writer?s block and for ten years has not written books, until this one. She often endows herself in imagining how her character heroes would die in such interesting but enjoyable manners for the readers. What we don?t know is, she is the voice that Harold Crick hears every day, occasionally. No one character in this film knows that she has been writing Harold?s fate in an instant. Even Karen herself does not know that Harold is a real-world character. The twist begins when Harold sees Karen on television. He has recognized the same accented voice that tells his story every day. He has recognized the voice that talked about his death. So he went to see Karen and make inquiries about the strange happenings in his life.
Harold and Karen meet and both are awed evidently. Karen did not expect her character would appear in front of her and be solid and tangible as Harold. Same thing, Harold did not expect to be meeting face to face with the voice he hears every day.
It all becomes touchingly dramatic when Harold has read the latter parts of the novel about his own life. In the end, it says that he is going to die. But he commends the writer?s ability to write such beautiful story like the story of his life. He asks Karen to continue the novel and the rest is for you to find out.
First, it is a story both fictional and real. It is fictional in a way that Harold?s life is only narrated or soon-to-be subject for a fictional novel. It is real because we see true human emotions, meaningful and colorful. When Harold learned to live by himself, that is the rising action of the film; which brings us later to the climax when Harold discovers that he has nowhere to go but to die soon. It is a film with so much effort to evoke the audience to live life in your fullest, fulfill your passion, love all you can, and be the best you can be. In the end, it is not a single line on a novel about your life will dictate the way you live it. But it is you who will be your own writer.
The movie is somewhat existential in theme. There is a certain point in Harold?s life when he learns to play the guitar, he pursues the girl he admires, and he learns how to get rid of all his routines. It is a turning point in his life. He learns to be the best he can and be for someone (Ana) and for himself. We do not have to learn that we are about to die no sooner for us to discover the essence of our existence. That is why Harold just doesn?t mind the voice that he hears sometimes, because he knows that it is he who molds what he is to become.
The film employs good photography. It is quite well-looking from the first shots up to the last. It also has interesting visual effects to help the audience envisage the given scenario at full details. The screenplay is certainly funny especially with thorough extraction of actors Will Ferrell, Emma Tohmpson, Dustin Hoffman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film has an interesting plot that established the characters into more concrete identities throughout. At first, we can imply that there are two unrelated stories in this film, Harold?s and Karen?s. The director has created seemingly two different worlds, one implied fictional, and one real, but merged them down quite extraordinarily in the end. Lastly, the film is concluded by a story-relevant and upbeat song by Spoon.
Upon watching this film, the film ?Oedipus Wrecks? tingled in my mind; it is Woody Allen?s featured film in the anthology ?New York Stories? together with fellow New Hollywood directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. In ?Stranger than Fiction?, if Harold hears a voice, in ?Oedipus Wrecks?, Woody Allen?s character sees and hears his mother with enlarged scale ghostly image in the atmosphere of New York City. It is such a funny presentation. That collection is totally great especially Martin Scorsese?s ?Life Lessons?, but it also exhibits such a lousy presentation from the father-daughter team-up Francis and Sofia Coppola in their feature titled ?Life Without Zoe".
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