Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction is comedy-drama about an IRS auditor played by Will Ferrell who realizes that he's protagonist of a novel. Unfortunately, the author of this unfinished work is known for her talent for penning tragedies. Or hero, Harold Crick, sets out to change his fate and drama and comedy ensues. His love interest, Ana Pascal, is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who I find myself attracted too even though she could be the spokesperson for the National Scoliosis Foundation. If you are the type of person that pays to see and movie and then refuses to suspend your belief, this isn't the movie for you. As the title implies, it's weirder than fiction.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie because it's very close to being a romantic comedy (even though is doesn't star Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks) and it's devoid the typical Will Ferrell physical humor.

It's a Literary Reference

The movie is entertaining on many levels, but the most obvious was literary. Authors and avid readers probably glean more from this film than I could ever hope.

Architecture

I love architecture. The film was shot in Chicago, a city with many beautiful and modern locations. I felt like the director wanted the spaces to be another character in the movie. As I listened to the dialog, I found myself admiring the rest of the scene. Most of the one-on-one interior scenes were not framed tight on the actors' faces. Instead, the director chose a wider shot that incorporated more of the surroundings. Warm lighting played off of the clean, contemporary architectural features. The Professor's office provided one of my favorite backdrops, polished stone walls segmented by tall slot-like tinted windows.

Watch

Another unexpected character in the movie was Harold's watch. Strange, but it worked. The watch took on its own personality as it attempted to stir his owner toward a different fate. The style of the watch, like the entire film, was clean and modern.

Augmented Reality

Ever since I watched the first Terminator movie, I've dreamed of a device (glasses, contact lens, retinal implants, ...) that would create annotated versions of what the wearer sees. For Mr. Crick, his obsessive and mathematical mind constructed graphs and annotations for the world around him. The facts and figures in his mind were displayed as 3D graphics attached to his head. You know the “I'm thinkin' Arby's” commercials, where the Arby's logo floats above the character's head and tracks his movements? Well, imagine that style of animation, but with a stream of words, numbers, and graphs rendered with clean white lines.

Math

All of the characters in the movie where named after famous mathematicians. I'm embarrassed that I didn't catch this, even with names like Hilbert, Pascal, and Mercator.