My Favorite Movies: Stranger Than Fiction

One of my problems with this blog is that it started too late. The idea behind the Reactions is to get my thoughts of a movie after the first time I see it. I didn't start the Movie Reactions in earnest until 2012 and the Delayed Reactions, fittingly, were a little behind, starting in 2013. That's over 20 years of viewing movies for the first time that I haven't covered. Frankly, it seems wrong that Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! gets a post but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind doesn't, all because of when I happened to them.  In order to rectify this some, I'm introducing a new on-going series tentatively called "My Favorite Movies". The idea is simple enough. At any given time, I have an all-time top 100 movie list. Sporadically, whenever I have the time, I 'll post a piece about one of these favorite movies. There is no order, rhyme, or reason to which movie I'll choose at a given time. The aim here is to examine why I regard the movie so highly, looking at everything from quality to personal context to sheer entertainment value. I hope you enjoy.

While most movies will be arbitrarily selected, this debut piece is not. Today, on my 30th birthday, I'm going to begin with the movie at the very top of my list - my all-time favorite movie - Stranger Than Fiction. I haven't had a lot of shifts in my favorite movie over the years. I probably called The Phantom Menace or The Two Towers my favorite at some point. I stayed agnostic on the idea for a while, realizing that I hadn't seen enough films to make an informed decision. Some time around 2008-09, Stranger Than Fiction cemented itself at the top and nothing has come close since. If I could only see one movie ever again, this would happily be my pick. That gut level feeling is what does most of the work. Then again, the whole point of this blog is that I'm not satisfied with my gut. I like to understand my gut, figure out what causes my gut. So, here is my attempt to explain why Stranger Than Fiction is my favorite movie of all time.

For me, it all begins with Harold Crick (but not his wristwatch). I won't say I am Harold Crick, but I certainly recognize a lot of things about him in myself. I'm neurotic and fairly obsessed with organizing and establishing rituals. In the movie, most of this is expressed by Harold’s constant measuring and enumerating. I notice the smaller things though, like how he only walks on the white lines on the crosswalk. He's aware of how awkward he can be around people. That’s why he gets off the bus a good 27 blocks too early when he first hits it off with Ana. Most people who know me have had an awkward experience talking to me on the street when I wasn't expecting to see you. Harold is happy to blend in rather than stick out, as am I. I've literally stopped going to food places when the people working there start to recognize me or crossed the street to avoid running into friends who haven’t noticed me yet just because I don’t think I have anything to say. I love the moment when Prof. Hibert tells Harold that he looks tired when, in fact, Harold is just calm. My face is misread often. I have a resting pissed face, when most of the time, I'm just thinking about something or calm. Harold is certainly an extreme case. He appears to have only one friend and no family. He is almost completely introverted and alone. I'm better than that, although, if you put me in a new city and give me a couple years, I may start sporting that half-Windsor knot as well. I cannot stress one key difference enough: I hate watches. Even before phones spared me of that insufferable accessory, I would put my watch in my pocket when my mother tried to make me wear one. The focus on Harold's watch nearly derails the movie for me. Otherwise, I'm totally a Harold Crick.

That's what makes the core story so great. Beneath all the literary, high-concept stuff (which I also love and will get to shortly), Stranger Than Fiction is a story about a man taking the lead in his life. I have a soft spot for a lot of story types, but a carpe diem story is chief among them. I am an absolute coward in my life. I don't take chances. I tell myself all the time how I'm going to break out of my ruts. I decide that I'm going to date more or figure out what I'm actually doing with my life. I will outline things months in advance to show that there’s promise for a better future in which I’m all the things I want to be. Then, I come up with an excuse not to do these things. It’s fear and it wins damn near every time. I like the idea of fate – that someone could be destined to do something great or significant. I don’t believe in it, but I find it comforting. A lot of people are driven by a belief in something even though nothing is actually guaranteed. Well, Harold Crick is a man who believes that his story has already been written and has more reason than most to believe that’s true. I look up to Harold because he doesn’t accept that he can’t make things better. I adore the conversation he has with Prof. Hibert that I affectionately call “the pancake discussion”. It gets me every time, especially the following exchange:

"This isn't...a story to me. It's my life."

"Absolutely. So just go make it the one you've always wanted."

Up to that point, Stranger Than Fiction is a clever little movie. How Harold responds to this is when the film becomes great. Still not sure what it means to "make the life you’ve always wanted", he asks Dave what he would do if he knew he was going to die. I love that conversation too. Dave doesn’t appear to take the question seriously at first. He asks if he’s the richest man in the world and ends up getting superpowers for the hypothetical. His answer though isn’t ridiculous. It’s serious. He’d go to Space Camp. “You’re never too old for Space Camp, dude.” Yeah, that’s on the nose, but I don’t care. It’s makes a profound point. The life you want doesn’t have to be something special. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting out of your own head, no longer counting brush strokes, buying a “terribly mistreated, Seafoam Green Fender Stratocaster”, seeing The Meaning of Life in the middle of the day*, and buying flours for the girl you like. Harold Crick doesn’t stop being himself after that. He just stops being afraid to be himself, and that’s what I respond to. I don’t care if the romance between Harold and Ana is simplistic either. By the time he brings her flours, I’ve already fully identified with the idea that “Harold is me”. Only thinking as far as “I want you”: I’ve definitely had moments like that. Singing “Whole Wide World”: I’ve never done that. I can’t imagine doing that. For someone like Harold or like me, that’s First Responder at the World Trade Center-level bravery. For my money, there’s not a more perfect collection of scenes in any movie than that middle act of this one. The cut to Wreckless Eric taking over singing his song (“Whole Wide World”) is the climax of the film when I watch it. The movie isn’t even close to being done though. There’s great things ahead.

*Side Note: The scene of Harold seeing The Meaning of Life by himself is what convinced me that there’s nothing wrong with seeing a movie by yourself, which has had a profound effect on my life, as silly as that seems.

This would be a good time to talk about Will Ferrell. I’m a big fan of comedians taking on dramatic roles. Robin Williams was exceptional when he wanted to be doing it. Adam Sandler is tremendous in Punch Drunk Love and, despite its many flaws, Funny People. On TV, Vince Gilligan has changed the career paths for Bryan Cranston and Bob Odenkirk by putting them in dramatic roles. Ferrell is my gold standard though. The character Harold Crick is all about restraint, which is the last thing anyone would’ve associated with Will Ferrell in 2006, fresh off Anchorman and Talladega Nights. That gives his performance a great tension. He nearly becomes the Will Ferrell we know a few times in the movie, and those scenes are all warning signs for Harold. When he yells to the sky at the bus stop after first finding out he’s going to die, that’s funny. But, it’s also followed by the eruption in his apartment that leads him to get help from professionals (first a psychiatrist, then a professor of Literature). Later, there’s the construction crew wrecking his apartment. Farrell rightfully plays that big. That moment directly leads to Hibert advising Harold to take control of his life because the narrative is happening regardless. Ferrell is great at bringing a childlike innocence to his characters. I guess you could call it being a “man-child”. Buddy the Elf, Ron Burgundy, and Ricky Bobby are all characters who, for one reason or another, have never had to grow up. Harold is like that too. He has retreated from life. He’s not worn down by disappointment. It’s more like he’s a toy that’s never been taken out of the box. That’s perfect for Ferrell. He just has to play everything smaller than he normally would. I can’t imagine a better actor for the role. He’s funny without being cynical. Weary but not spent.

This has a great cast all-around. That’s a statement, not an opinion. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson have two Oscars each. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Queen Latifa have Oscar nominations too. Tony Hale is building an Emmy collection. Will Ferrell is one of the weaker actors in the film by the numbers. I wouldn’t say any of the supporting characters in the film are complex. They aren’t supposed to be. Most of them are too obsessed to be complex. Karen Eiffel is fixated on death. Jules Hibert is obsessed with literature. Ana Pascal has to be a revolutionary. Penny Escher is efficient. Only Dave isn’t preoccupied with something else (although he sure does like outer space). And, all of them are willing to break from their preoccupations for Harold’s sake. Karen’s entire life is tied to death. Oddly, it’s what she lives for. Does she ever seem happier than when she’s at the ICU looking for the “dead for-sure ones”? However, she sacrifices the perfect death in order to keep Harold alive. Ana is a woman crusading for responsible government spending who falls for an IRS agent. No need to explain the conflict there. Penny has a reputation for always meeting a deadline, yet she has sympathy for Harold’s situation and gets Karen an extension. Prof. Hibert is the most interesting to me, because it took me the longest time to figure him out. Initially, he isn’t helping Harold because he cares about him. He doesn’t even care enough to remember Harold's name at first (Howard is close though). He immediately reacts to Harold like a character in a book. In their first meeting, Hibert is more interested in guessing Harold’s quirks than listening to his situation. The quiz he gives Harold is a test of his own ability to recognize story types. He literally shuts the door on Harold until Harold becomes literary (“Little did he know”). When Harold identifies Karen as the author he’s hearing, the fact that she kills her characters is only Hibert’s second concern. His first is disappointment that he didn’t guess the right narrator. Hell, he tries to convince Harold that he should die for the sake of it making a good story. He makes it abundantly clear that he is too busy to be helping Harold when they first meet, but he’s too obsessed with literary examination to pass this opportunity up. Even he is swayed by Harold though. At the pool, he lets Harold think he’s not interested enough to read Karen’s manuscript right away, then he starts reading as soon as Harold leaves. In his meeting with Karen*, as hard as he tries, he can’t hide the fact that he’s pleased she didn’t kill him off.

*Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson only have one scene together and they are great in it. A year later, they are the co-leads in Last Chance Harvey, a movie that has them together almost the entire time. Coincidence? I think not.

OK. It’s finally time for the easy target. Stranger Than Fiction is a high concept movie. It’s what the movie was sold on. It’s why I saw it in theaters opening weekend*. That high concept is the idea that this is the story of a man trapped in a story about his life. I gave up writing original stories many years ago, but I’ve always been obsessed with storytelling. I love the structure of stories and how to break them. My favorite episodes of shows growing up would almost always be the ones like the Rashomon-style episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks that played with the narration. The reason I stopped attempting to write my own fiction (other than not being that great at it) is because I was always more interested in the construction than the final product (the logistics of character locations, the consequence of actions way down the line, how different perspectives can change the meaning of events). I'd be spo busy planning that I would never get around to writing. So, I’m a sucker for a movie that plays with the writing process. Something like Adaptation is an obvious one, but I even adore Alex & Emma. Stranger Than Fiction was certain to be something I would eat up. I did a lot more research for this post than I have for anything I’ve written on this blog. Something I saw repeatedly written about Stranger Than Fiction is that it people called it “imitation Charlie Kaufman”. I understand where that’s coming from. With films like Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman cornered the market on screenplays that break narrative structure. I don’t think that’s what Stranger Than Fiction does though. It’s doesn’t break the narrative. It’s a slave to the narrative. The central question of the movie is who is writing the story. I still don’t know the answer. Karen Eiffel and Harold Crick never lose their agency in the film. Even once Harold “knows” how his story will end, he chooses to follow its lead. He could choose not to go to work that day, but then that boy would be hit by that bus. Like many things in the movie, the boy and the bus driver are plot devices. We don’t really know about them. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a story, nor does it mean that what happens to them doesn’t matter. Harold understands that and decides to do what Karen’s outline says. He chooses to save that nameless boy. Who really has more power in the story: Harold or Karen? Again, I don’t know. Another common criticism I read is that the last act of the movie falls apart: that is squanders everything it’s building toward. But...isn’t that the point? Perhaps I’m “drinking the kool-aid”, but Stranger Than Fiction is the story of Karen Eiffel writing Death & Texas Taxes. Karen and Prof. Hibert have a discussion at the end of the movie about how the ending of the book is a disappointment. By definition then, the end of the movie should be disappointing/contrived. Just listen to the doctor at the end explaining to Harold how he survived. That’s a plot device too. There are so many plot devices in the movie: Harold’s watch dying, the woman handing two audits to Harold and Dave, Harold’s apartment being destroyed. This is a movie about plot-driven vs. character-driven story-telling. Prof. Hibert’s speech to Harold about what happens if he "walks through that door" has been the basis of nearly all story criticism I’ve had for the last decade. Is it a coincidence that the best parts of the movie happen when Harold is consciously driving his story? I don’t think so.

*I’ve saved over 500 ticket stubs for nearly every movie I’ve seen since 2004. I cannot express how sad I am that my stub for Stranger Than Fiction is one of the few that I cannot find.

Not everything that I love about Stranger Than Fiction is the big stuff. For instance, I adore this sound track. It introduced me to Spoon. Thank you for that. “The Way We Get By” and “My Mathematical Mind” are great songs that fit the film perfectly. I dig the style of the film. The visualization of all the calculations in Harold’s mind are a bit much at first. I appreciate them more every time, even when they are just there as a joke. After Harold is in the bathroom with Prof. Hibert, Hibert asks Harold if he was able to count the number of tiles on the floor. Incredulously, Harold tells him he wasn’t counting the tiles. Only, thanks to the graphics, we, the audience, know that Harold wasn’t counting the tiles because he was too busy measuring the soap dispensers. I even love that his two coworkers at the IRS are the guys from the Sonic commercials. 
One odd thing that plays in its favor is that I didn’t like Stranger Than Fiction much when I first saw it. The friends I saw it with all loved it. I didn’t. Thanks to the advertising, I was expecting something much different. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m slow to pick up on some movies. I miss a lot the first time. I can accidentally focus on the wrong thing when I first see something*. If your thoughts of a movie a decade later are still exactly the same as when you first saw it, I’m not sure that I can trust your opinion. I bought Stranger Than Fiction on DVD to figure it out. While I didn’t love it at first, I also didn’t stop thinking about it. I had to figure it out. I watched it many times. Before long, I realized that I was watching it for enjoyment, not as a puzzle. I wish I had an “a-ha” moment when I knew I loved it. There isn’t one. Curiosity just turned into appreciation.

*Lord knows I harped on all the reflection imagery in Carol initially. I’m slowly appreciating the rest of that film more.

When it’s all said and done, I shouldn’t overthink it. I love this movie because it makes me feel good. That’s allowed. I’m not saying this is the best made movie of all time. It’s just my favorite, and I only have to answer to myself. Some of this is due to context or opportunity. Certain periods in my life have a disproportionate number of my favorite films. 2001, when I was 14 and finally starting to look at movies as more than just entertainment, has the first Lord of the Rings, Ocean’s Eleven, and A Knight’s Tale, which are among my top 15 favorites ever. 2011, when I started seeing movies by myself, thus not seeing them as only a social activity, is very prevalent in my top 100 movie list with films like Warrior, Bridesmaids, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil all rating highly. It’s probably no coincidence that my two favorite movies of all time, Stranger Than Fiction and Superbad, came out less than a year apart (in 2006 and 2007) when I was 19-20 years old. We’re all more impressionable at certain times in our life and this film certainly benefited from that.

Regardless of the reason, when I watch this movie, I just feel great. While I don’t consider this film a true comedy, it has some lines that tickle the hell out of me. It uses the one “fuck” a PG-13 movie is allowed, when Hibert responds to Harold’s narrator not telling him when he’s going to die by saying, "Dramatic irony. It'll fuck you every time". Have you ever paused to see what Hibert doesn’t want erased on the chalkboard? You should. When Harold tells Hibert, "I can't die right now. It's just really bad timing", I know it’s supposed to be funny, but it breaks my heart every time. When Ana tells Harold “I know…I want you too” I want to jump up and cheer. I don’t care how hokey Karen’s narration at the end of the movie is. I get teary-eyed every time I hear it. If you ask me, it doesn’t get any better than Stranger Than Fiction.

"Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren’t any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true."