I was led to believe that the latest Will Ferrell movie, Stranger Than Fiction, was a sub-par version of Adaptation. (2002). In fact, while it explores some similar themes, it is quite different and is very good in its own way. At this stage, it’s probably on its way out of the theaters and onto Netflix (actually on 02/27/07), but I’d still recommend it.
I’m sure some people are considering this Ferrell’s “serious” comedy, in the same way The Truman Show (1998) was for Jim Carrey. Forget this stuff. What the movie is about is the act of writing.
If you’ve seen the commercials, than you know that Will Ferrell’s character, an uptight IRS auditor, suddenly discovers that he can hear a disembodied voice narrating his life. He eventually figures out that he is a character in a book and that he is headed for a deadly fate.
But the film (written by Zach Helm) is as much about the author, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson). Most writers, by their very nature, are cannibals who play god. They constantly plunder their own lives and the lives of others for material. It’s not uncommon for them to take personal tragedy and turn it into creative endeavor. At the same time, they get to rule the world. They create a fictional environment, populate it with characters and then send them through their paces. Wouldn’t it be interesting to kill this guy? Maybe just maim him a little?
In Stranger Than Fiction, Eiffel is a serious literary writer who seems to always kill off the characters of her novels. She has been working on her latest book, Death and Taxes, for a decade, but is stuck at coming up with an appropriate demise. Eventually, she discovers that her lead character is real and she stumbles. She doesn’t seem to enjoy her own life much and when she is faced with the prospect of snuffing out another, she flinches.
In some ways, it might seem like a Hollywood cop-out. The film spends most of its time essentially arguing for unhappy endings. Our hero Harold Crick consults a literature expert, Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). They discover the existence of the book Death and Taxes and Hilbert reads the final manuscript, which ends with Crick’s death. He tells Crick that is the way his life is meant to be. It’s a brilliant book and his death is right and appropriate. After all, we all will die one day, yes? Crick also reads the book and accepts the same conclusion.
SPOILER ALERT: But then Harold Crick lives. He gets a happy ending after all. Professor Hilbert reads the new version and clearly considers it weaker than the original tragic conclusion. But Harold is real to Eiffel and she values him too much to kill him.
On the one hand, I know people who hate unhappy endings. Or endings with any ambiguity. This past weekend, I saw Remember the Night (1940) on TCM, a romantic comedy written by Preston Sturges and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. She’s a shoplifter and he’s the prosecutor who ends up taking her home for the holidays. In the ending, the case resumes in court; he tries to throw the case, so that she will get off. But she won’t let him and pleads guilty. On the one hand, they’re in love and you’ll know he’ll wait for her. On the other hand, you have a dimly lit tableau of the two of them standing in shadows, with her going to prison for a couple of years.
That movie over, change channels to Never Been Kissed (1999), just in time to see the dramatic ending. Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) is putting herself out there in a very public way. She stands on the pitcher’s mound, hoping that her true love will show up. The deadline passes. She is bereft. But wait! Cue the music, for here he comes! Big clinch. Fade out.
In these sorts of movies, people don’t go to prison. They don’t get seriously wounded or, if they do, these wounds quickly heal.
At the same time, I’ve never been a fan of literature that seems to equate unhappiness with seriousness of intent. Some books seem very determined to prove that they’re not some slight genre hackwork by having muddled plots, characters’ goals denied, hopes dashed. So, I’m not automatically against happy endings.
In the end, Kay Eiffel does kill the main character of her book, which turns out to be Harold Crick’s watch. Observe the beginning of the film carefully and compare to how it ends and you’ll see what I mean. It is a story of noble sacrifice after all.
Tags: Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Zach Helm, film
3 Responses
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girish Says:
Greetings, Pop View. Hope you’ve been well.
Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night is a great personal favorite; the Siren has put up a nice post on it today.
Wish you and yours happy holidays.
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Joey McIntosh Says:
My husband and I just saw the movie, but tragically, the film jammed in the last 10 minutes. I realize he was hit by a bus, and didn’t die, but what happened after that? Anything? I was sitting there in the theater thinking, “you have got to be kidding me?” Please help me! What did I miss?
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The Pop View Says:
There is a fairly complete summary in the film’s Wikipedia entry, including a description of the ending.