Stranger Than Fiction

Tonight I went to see Stranger Than Fiction with Laura and Rhiannon. Now I am not a big fan of Will Ferrell, but this movie was not the typical Will Ferrell comedy, which is good.

Let me begin with some observations about movie theatres and how capitalism has affected them. In getting my food and drink combo I received a candy of my choice: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups or a huge package of Nibs. I like the former more than the latter, but I knew that if I took the peanut butter cups then they would melt during the movie. There were n people behind me, however, so I had to make the decision quickly. I took the peanut butter cups and ate them while waiting for Laura and Rhiannon, who were battling the automatic ticket machine.

The second observation that I would like to make concerns cell phones. It’s all well and good that you have a cell phone. Yay. But please, turn it off when you are in the movie theatre! There is something called etiquette, and even a somewhat reclusive 17-year-old like myself, who often exclaims that he doesn’t know all of these unwritten “rules” in life, knows that one should turn off one’s cell phone in a movie theatre. So ignorance is not an excuse. It does annoy people when one’s cell phone goes off during the movie. And for Zarquon’s sake, do not answer it and start talking! (This actually happened.)

Ah, yes, the movie. The movie. Well, at some points I didn’t like it at all. I thought it was poorly done and cheesy and too slow. But near the ending I was hooked. I could not get up to go to the washroom for fear of missing a small yet significant part of the movie. This is not an action movie; it was very serious and involved a lot of dialogue.

The ending was also predictable—not at the beginning, but nearer toward the actual end, I knew what was going to happen and why. But that’s okay. It was worth it, watching the movie build up to its end. I loved watching how Emma Thompson’s character, the reclusive Karen Eiffel, reacts to the news that her character, Harold Crick, is a living and breathing creature. She asks of her assistant how many people she has killed over the years, and reveals that she counted: eight. Can you imagine the revelation that, in writing your books (for she writes only tragedies where the hero dies at the end), you have been killing living, breathing people?

Will Ferrell’s performance goes above and beyond what he has done before. This is not the Zoolander, Old School type of humour, although some of that Will Ferrell does sneak into his portrayal of Harold Crick, which is okay, because that’s what makes the movie enjoyable. Harold reminds me a lot of Arthur Dent, the protagonist of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In fact, I think that part of the reason that I liked it so much is that there were a number of parallels to h2g2. But I won’t spoil that for you.

The movie is well worth going to see. It made me feel so much better afterward. Lately I’ve been feeling stressed and a bit overworked. The ending may be a bit corny, but it was … nice. And it wasn’t the normal cheap sort of Disney-nice that seems to be manufactured in China these days and imported to 9 out of 10 movie screens. This movie had earned its ending.

After the movie we spontaneously decided to go bowling, which was great fun. I acquitted myself reasonably well; we bowled two games and had a great time.

But if I ever hear someone say “Little did he know…” in my head…