Retro Reel by Sreepathy, Volume 15

Retro Reel is a column about movies, but not about the latest box-office releases. There will be aspects of review, but the column is intended more as a recommendation of good movies of different genres, with the sense of a retrospective – hence, the ‘Retro’ in the name. In a day and age when movies are projected digitally, the word “reel” may seem retrograde and outdated. Yet, no other word captures the imagery of a movie as “Reel”…Sreepathy is an unabashed movie buff who loves a well-told onscreen story. He has a list of about 450 must-watch movies, and Retro Reel is an attempt to share with friends of a similar bent of mind, some of the best movie-watching experiences he has had. He lives in Naperville with his wife and two sons

Stranger Than Fiction

Should a creator destroy what he’s created whenever he wants ?

As gifted as highly intelligent people are, they frequently come bundled with another very human attribute – arrogance. Authors and stories (and movies too) are not immune to this bundling. But every once in a rare while, along comes an uncommonly intelligent and thoughtful movie that doesn’t try to show off its depth. Rather, it devotes itself to telling a story quietly but innovatively, shows that it cares for its characters, and tops it off with a gentle tone of humor to underline its humility…And along the way, it picks up a serious question like the one we started with.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) is one such movie. And it deserves all the recognition and respect it should get. When I saw the movie the first time, I was ready for it to be funny (it has Will Ferrell in the lead role); but as it progressed, I was profoundly struck not just by its humor, but by its humanity. And yes, I certainly wasn’t ready to be so touched by its tale…

So, how does the movie’s gifted script-writer address a somber question, yet make it funny and entertaining ? He picks a protagonist who is dull as a drone, puts him in a bizarrely drastic situation, introduces a sudden rush of romance and warmth in his life, and then fashions a fantasy-climax to resolve the story’s central conflict. But more than the elements of the story, it is the warm and witty irony written into its characters that makes it so watchable on screen. Irony is a very powerful communicator. And, humor delivers the ultimate irony of all – its lightness can carry weighty insights. Haven’t you noticed that truly wise folks are funny…And warm.

If you ask people to name a dull profession, chances are “Accountant” will come up more than once. But ask an accountant to name a dull job, and he or she will most probably say “Tax Auditor”…So it transpires that Harold Crick, our hero of the story, is a tax agent. If that’s not dull enough, he is anal-retentive – leading a life defined and dictated by many numbers; and by his unforgettable wrist-watch. You see, every morning he counts the brush-strokes he applies to each of his teeth; leaves home precisely at 8.13 am (or whatever); counts the number of steps it takes to reach the bus-stop to get to work; and solves complex multiplication problems in a trice. When asked what his favorite word is, he says, quite unsurprisingly, “Integer”. Earnest but simple, he lives alone – friendless and family-less – and is so removed from anything that resembles a social life that if love were to bite him in the leg, he would most likely reach out to his doctor for a tetanus-shot. With a fertile character like that, can the story avoid being funny ?

Thus, Mr Crick’s humdrum life ambles along – neither happy nor horrifying – till one day, when a woman’s British-accented voice begins to speak in his head. It narrates very accurate things about his life, down to the here-and-now – right to this moment. He tries to ignore the incessant running commentary of his life till the voice proclaims that he’s going to die soon. The naïve man is perplexed but soon realizes that he is not crazy; but that he is a character on the verge of death in a novel that’s being written by an author, who is narrating his own story to him in real-time ! Thanks to this incredible intersection of literature and life, he figures that once the character’s death is actually written, he himself would die in real life too…

Right around this time, he begins to audit the tax returns of Ana Pascal, a feisty but beautiful baker, who wants to “make the world a better place” with her cookies. One thing leads to another, and before long, Harold feels love’s leg-bite – but doesn’t reach out to his doctor ! Ana is initially annoyed by him (obviously, he is auditing her), but soon her annoyance gives way to pity, and finally, to love for him…And now, Harold wants to live a life instead of living an existence, and yearns desperately to continue with it. With help from a psychiatrist, he reaches out to a doctor of a different kind – Dr Hilbert, a professor of literary theory – to figure out which author the voice belongs to so that he can ask her to change her novel’s ending to avoid dying. This part of the story is most touching, even though it has now crossed over into fantasyland.

Karen Eiffel is Harold’s author-creator who is battling the neurosis of a writer’s block, struggling for a long time to complete her current novel. Killing the main character, Harold, will make her novel a masterpiece, and in her present woeful writing condition, she is desperately thinking up different ways to appropriately terminate him…And, at last, she settles on one. Now, every author dreams of bringing their characters alive for their readers, but when her own character literally comes alive and confronts her to spare his life, she’s caught in a dilemma she isn’t prepared for…The movie’s ending provokes a debate, but justifies it with a rationale you can’t quarrel with much.

With this kind of material, I thought that the film was adapted from a book – but no. Written directly for the screen by Zach Helm, it has an engaging screenplay that uses technology and camera innovatively to make an abstruse narrative visually very attractive. And, if you feel that some of the locations in the movie are familiar, you’re right – it’s all downtown Chicago…Marc Foster directs the movie with the same level of warmth and wit that is invested in its script. As for the acting honors, Will Ferrell is outstanding in the role of Harold Crick. He sets aside his boisterously funny image and brilliantly underplays the character, just as it ought to be. The list of comically gifted actors who can handle the serious stuff well is not very long – Robin Williams, Steve Martin, and Jim Carrey come to mind apart from a few others. With this role, Ferrell makes it to that list. Dustin Hoffman plays Dr Hilbert, but the role isn’t big enough to showcase his acting finesse. But the other great performance in the film comes from the tremendously talented British actress Emma Thompson in the role of the author. Creative folks are eccentric freaks, and Thompson’s acting defines the highly-strung neurotic writer to a T.

If I had started with the same question as in the beginning, but with a few uppercase letters instead (“Should the Creator destroy what He’s created whenever He wants ?”), it would’ve been even more serious. Not to mention controversial too, with believers of different hues. Of course, the movie doesn’t raise that question, but the tone of its trope is unmistakable…Stranger Than Fiction was billed as a comedy, a romance, a fantasy, but it is all that and then some. By the time you are done with its laughter, its warmth, and its unlikely storyline, it’ll dawn on you that it has left you with a moral, like in a fable from your childhood. And you’ll agree with me – after seeing the movie – that the best moral tale is one that doesn’t sound like one…

PS: ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is available in the Naperville Public Library.