Stranger than Fiction (2006) by Marc Forster is the epitome of self-reflexive postmodernism. The film revolves around an accountant, Harold Crick (played by Will Ferrel), who leads a very boring, ritualistic and steady life. His life is disrupted when he starts to hear a female voice that narrates what he thinks or does. With the help of literary Professor Jules Hilbert (played by Dustin Hoffman) he establishes that he is not going mad, but is in fact the creation and protagonist of one of the latest novels of award-winning author Kay Eiffel (played by Emma Thompson). Kay is still in the process of completing her novel and when Harold discovers that she has a history of killing off her protagonists, survival becomes a race against time. Especially since his boring life has been pleasantly disturbed by Ana Pascal (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker he meets on one of his IRS investigations and falls in love with.
The film is scattered with self-reflexive references which constantly remind the viewer that he/she is indeed watching a film, a fictional piece of art. Yet the director succeeds to breathe so much life into the protagonist, just like novelists often do with their main characters, that the viewer cannot help but regard Harold as more than just a fictional character. Harold becomes a real person to the viewer who empathises with him and secretly hopes that he will not be killed off. Forster ingeniously blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, literature and film, tragedy and comedy. Even though Harold’s life seems to be a tragedy from his own viewpoint, the viewer regards the film as a comedy – therefore the dramatic irony.
Harold is the typical sad and weak anti-hero (like Winston Smith in Nineteen-Eighty-Four or Lester Burnham in American Beauty). Will Ferrel gives a somewhat unexpectedly impressive and subtle performance as the serious Harold Crick.
SPOILER WARNING: The viewer knows and expects that Harold has to die for the sake of art and for the sake of staying true to what would make the story more literary and powerful. But director Marc Forster goes against these principles, as does novelist Kay Eiffel, and Harold also breaks the mold of being an anti-hero. The act of surrendering his life into the hands of his makers, which ironically is his maker Forster’s choice anyway and might be construed as the ultimate example of weakness, makes him a hero in the eyes of the viewers and his makers. His life is spared, and even though the end is not as literary or as powerful as it could have been, the viewer is not bothered for he/she rejoices in Harold’s new lease on (a more exciting) life. SPOILERS END HERE.
The film makes one think about the issues regarding the creation of art: Do these characters, created by novelists or filmmakers, have a life apart from the artwork they are a part of? Do they only exist when the novel is read or the film is watched? Or do they exist as a separate entity within the artwork as soon as they are created by a writer, even though no one has ever set eyes on the artwork? I believe they exist from the moment they are read about or viewed, when the world of the characters and the world of the viewer collide, and that they then live on in the memories of the readers or viewers. But still, if no one hears or sees a tree falling, does that indeed mean that the tree does not fall? Something can exist apart from being observed, can it not?
Genre: Comedy-Drama / Romance
Running time: 113 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Marc Forster
Writing credits: Zach Helm
Producers: Lindsay Doran
Cinematographer: Roberto Schaeffer
Editor: Matt Chessé
Editor:
Britt Daniel
Brian Reitzell
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Main Cast:
Harold Crick – Will Ferrell
Prof. Jules Herbert – Dustin Hoffman
Kay Eiffel – Emma Thompson
Ana Pascal – Maggie Gyllenhaal
Penny Escher – Queen Latifah
