Stranger than Fiction (film)
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| Stranger than Fiction | |
|---|---|
 DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Marc Forster |
| Produced by | Lindsay Doran |
| Written by | Zach Helm |
| Starring | Will Ferrell Maggie Gyllenhaal Dustin Hoffman Queen Latifah Emma Thompson Linda Hunt |
| Music by | Britt Daniel, Brian Reitzell |
| Cinematography | Roberto Schaeffer |
| Editing by | Matt Chessé |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | November 10, 2006 |
| IMDb profile | |
Stranger than Fiction is a 2006 American comedy-drama film released on November 10, 2006. The film is directed by Marc Forster, written by Zach Helm, and starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson, and Linda Hunt. Columbia Pictures distributed the film, which is rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.
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[edit] Plot
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a dull auditor for the Internal Revenue Service in an unnamed city (actually Chicago) who is awakened alone each morning by his Timex T56371 watch. He eats alone, counts the number of steps he walks, focuses on ways to save time such as tying his tie in a half (as opposed to the more common, full) Windsor knot, and brushes his teeth exactly 76 times (38 vertical strokes, 38 horizontal) and runs for the 8:17 AM Kronecker bus. One day, Harold begins to hear the voice of a British woman, describing his thoughts and actions in real-time as if he were a character in a book. Harold attempts to communicate with the speaker, but soon realizes the voice does not know that he can hear it. That same day, Harold is assigned to audit an intentionally tax-delinquent baker, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Her anti-authoritarian mindset is complementary to Harold's essence and attraction arises between them within moments of meeting. Later that afternoon, Harold's watch stops working while he is waiting for the bus. Harold resets his watch to a time given by a bystander and hears narrator saying that this seemingly innocuous act would lead to his imminent death.
Anxious at this ominious narration, Harold sees a psychiatrist who attributes the voice to schizophrenia. However, after Harold pleads that schizophrenia is not the case, the psychiatrist recommends he see a literary expert. Harold then visits Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a professor at a local university (actually the University of Illinois at Chicago), for advice on how to change his apparent destiny. Hilbert interviews Harold and decides he must first properly ascertain the genre of his story. He summates that ultimately, to understand literature, one must generally choose between two faces of the human story: comedy or tragedy.
Harold returns to Ana's bakery where she makes certain that his auditing of her is an unbearable experience. However, at the end of the day, she bakes him a batch of cookies and shares with him that she had dropped out of Harvard Law school to bake cookies, because she feels that her positive imprint on the world would be through baked goods. She pleads that he take a box of cookies home, but Harold rejects this offer because it constitutes a gift (or bribery for an auditor) and offers to purchase them instead. Ana, offended by the idea, tells him to go home.
Taking Hilbert's advice, Harold begins to live his life as he only had dreamed: he takes a lengthy vacation; he rekindles a desire to play the guitar, becomes friends with Dave, a co-worker (Tony Hale), ignores the numerical measurements of his actions, and pursues and courts (ignoring "auditor-auditee protocol") Ana, who responds passionately. Harold buys her flour (the baking kind--as a pun to flowers) and walks her home, then proceeds to play "(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World" by Wreckless Eric on her guitar. The two consummate their attraction for each other, and this leads Harold to suppose that his story is a comedy, wherein the protagonists' feelings of hatred for each other change entirely.
Back at Professor Hilbert's, as they are trying to deduce the author of Harold's story, Harold notices on the TV an old interview with author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) talking about her next book, Death and Taxes. Harold immediately recognizes Karen's voice as that of his narrator's. Hilbert delivers the bad news: every one of her books is a tragedy in which the protagonist dies just as life becomes worthwhile.
Harold then begins a frantic search to find Karen, eventually tracking her down through a decade old IRS file. Arriving at her apartment, he tells her that he is Harold Crick, the main character of her current book, and does not want to die. Karen is stunned to learn that all she had typed has happened to the living Harold Crick. She gives him the manuscript of the story, with the ending still written on legal pad paper, and tells him he deserves to know how the story ends. Deciding that he cannot bring himself to read the manuscript, Harold gives it to Professor Hilbert to read first.
When Harold receives the manuscript back from Hilbert the next day, Hilbert says that the story is a masterpiece and cannot be changed. He adds that because death is inevitable, Harold should accept it now. Harold then gets on a city bus and spends all day there reading the manuscript. Upon finishing, he encounters Karen and tells her that it is a masterpiece and he is willing to die this meaningful death. Harold then spends his last night with Ana where he tells her that he adores her and then shares a "secret" with her: all the baked goods that she gives away can be written off as a charitable contribution. He tells her that his positive imprint on the world would be to keep Ana out of jail. He wakes up the next morning prepared to face his destiny.
Karen calmly narrates his day: his waking up, his getting ready, and eventually heading to the bus stop. Coincidentally, his death is to occur on the same day that he expects to return to work after vacation. It turns out that after his watch had stopped, Harold unknowingly set it to run three minutes fast, based on the time that a bystander had told him. Instead of being exactly on time for the 8:17 AM bus, he arrives three minutes early -- just in time to push a little boy on a bicycle out of the way of the Kronecker bus, which hits Harold instead.
Back in her office, Karen struggles to type the final words leading to Harold's death. She weeps at her incomplete final sentence, "Harold Crick was de-" when the scene cuts. We soon learn that Karen decides not to kill off Harold Crick. In a stroke of irony, she writes that he was saved by a piece of his wristwatch that had became lodged in his artery during the crash, preventing him from bleeding to death. His doctor explains that his wristwatch saved his now meaningful life, the doctor wryly adding on how "cool" that was. He also comments that removing the shard of watch would cause fatal arterial damage, and that Harold would always have a piece of wrist watch in him. Ana comes to visit Harold, and sees that he has broken several bones. Karen later visits Jules Hilbert, and asks his opinion of her alternate ending. Hilbert replies that it was, "Okay, not great, but okay." In her defense, Karen explains to Hilbert that the value in killing Harold was lost, since he was aware of his death. She plans to rewrite the rest of the book to give Harold this knowledge of his "imminent death," and creating the story as we saw it. A man that is able to knowingly face his own death is not a man who deserves to die. The irony of the tragedy that would have become the masterpiece of her life instead became a perhaps more meaningful tribute to the man named Harold Crick, who no longer counted his footsteps and learned to appreciate the ones he took, rather than how many he took.
In the end, Karen manages to kill off the main character of her story in a different way - the watch now becoming the main character that dies a meaningful death so Harolds will live.
[edit] Cast
- Will Ferrell - Harold Crick, an IRS auditor, who finds one day that not only is his life being narrated, but that he may soon die. This starts to affect his entire life, and he elicits help from Jules Hilbert.
- Emma Thompson - Karen Eiffel, a famous writer and the voice of Harold Crick's narrator. After she becomes the narrator in Harold's life, she claims that he will soon die.
- Dustin Hoffman - Professor Jules Hilbert, a literature professor who attempts to help Harold with his narration problem by analyzing whether he is in a comedy or a tragedy. A fan of Eiffel.
- Queen Latifah - Penny Escher, assistant to Eiffel, whom her publishers have hired to make sure that she completes her new book by the set deadline. Often refers to Karen as "Kay".
- Maggie Gyllenhaal - Ana Pascal, a baker and former Harvard Law student with a passion for her skill. Her wish is to make people happy -- a desire fulfilled by her cooking. She cultivates positive intentions, but is outspoken and loathes all things corporate.
- Tony Hale - Dave, Harold's only real friend at work, whom he stays with after his apartment is partially demolished.
- Linda Hunt - Dr. Mittag-Leffler, a psychiatrist
- Tom Hulce - Dr. Cayly
- Kristin Chenoweth - Darlene Sunshine, a TV talk show host on the fictitious "Book Channel" (character name only revealed on DVD release)
[edit] Trivia
- Will Ferrell was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role as Harold Crick in this movie.
- When Harold begins responding to the voiceover, the viewer is led to believe that the writer has broken the fourth wall, though it is later shown that the movie does not in fact make any explicit meta-references, itself being a work of metafiction. For a similar style, see Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation.
- While the writer's intent is not known, the last names of many characters can be connected to the last names of famous modern scientists and mathematicians: Francis Crick, Gustave Eiffel, David Hilbert, Blaise Pascal, Arthur Cayley, and Gösta Mittag-Leffler. Penny Escher's name can be connected to M. C. Escher, a Dutch graphic artist whose work was heavily influenced by mathematics.
- The Kroenecker bus, which hits Harold, can be attributed to the famous mathematician of the same name, Leopold Kronecker.
- Additionally, Eiffel's publisher, Banneker Press, can be attributed to mathematician and clockmaker Benjamin Banneker.
- In an early scene, onscreen graphics appear that resemble an image used to illustrate the golden ratio.
- The movie Harold is watching in the movie theater is Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, specifically the Mr. Creosote scene.
- The Soundtrack of the film contains five songs by indie rock group Spoon, including a song written exclusively for the movie entitled "The Book I Write". It also includes three songs written by Spoon frontman Britt Daniel and musician Brian Reitzell.
- The film borrows heavily from Niebla by Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish novel about a character who becomes aware he is being narrated by a writer and goes to visit him. However, in Unamuno's story, the main character commits suicide.
- Portions of the movie were filmed on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago during the 2004-2005 academic year.
- Actors T.J. Jagodowski and Peter Grosz, who play two of Crick's co-workers, are well-known to American television viewers from their series of advertisements for the Sonic Drive-In restaurants.
- In the scene where Harold is given the box of cookies, the cookies can clearly be seen on the table when he is explaining how he messed up. Then it cuts to him, and then back to the table and Ana, and the cookies are gone.
[edit] Taglines
- Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Period.
- Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Full Stop.
- Harold Crick always wondered what life was all about. Then it hit him.
- Harold Crick thought his life had no point. That's about to change.
- The story of his life!
- Truth is stranger than fiction.
- Harold Crick's not crazy, he's just written that way.
[edit] External links
- Stranger than Fiction official site
- Stranger than Fiction at the Internet Movie Database
- Stranger than Fiction at Rotten Tomatoes
- Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack Soundtrack questions, answers and other music information.
- Dustin Hoffman Stranger Than Fiction interview at stv.tv
- A Review of the Film by Roger Ebert
- Timex T56371 Watch Featured in Movie
