Stranger than Fiction
Had a good weekend. Bethany and I are now left wondering, however, whether there shouldn't be another accepted genre of movies out there. Because we went to see Stranger than Fiction on Saturday night. It's an odd movie. Will Ferrell plays a man who starts hearing a voice narrating his life, and begins to realise that he's a character in a novel. Annoying because it's distracting as it is, but then the voice mentions his "impending death." And that, of course, is where everything starts to get interesting, because the voice is always right. And he doesn't want to die. All very Sophie's World. It's been marketed as a Will Ferrell movie and, like Spanglish and to a lesser degree Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, it's a film which demonstrates that a slapstick comedic actor in fact has a surprising amount of depth behind him, at least when he chooses to use it. While there are plenty of laughs, the movie's unquestionably not a comedy, and probably doesn't fit into the usual "drama" bracket, so what the hell is it? The movie both centers around Ferrell's growing romance with an anarchist baker (!) (which, you get the feeling, only occurs because of the disembodied voice narrating that he's attracted to her) brilliantly played by Maggie Gylenhaal and Ferrell's increasingly desperate attempts to find the author seemingly dictating his life to get her to stop writing before the book reaches its conclusion and he dies his seemingly inevitable death.
It's a silly concept, surprisingly deep but at the same time, almost utterly pointless - there's no message to be taken away from this, no deep meaning behind the strange premise. No firm genre that it fits into, either, which as I said has gotten Bethany and I thinking that we need some sort of "none of the above," bracket, although I think I have an easier time slotting it into the drama section than she does, as to me at least that already feels like something of a catch-all.
And the movie? Definitely an interesting diversion, definitely worth seeing, definitely not a stereotypical Will Ferrell movie (thank God!), but on some level still a little dissattisfying just because you feel like it ought to have been deeper than it actually was. Still a worthwhile distraction if you get the chance, and given the dearth of movies that I've wanted to see recently, a welcome one, too.
It's a silly concept, surprisingly deep but at the same time, almost utterly pointless - there's no message to be taken away from this, no deep meaning behind the strange premise. No firm genre that it fits into, either, which as I said has gotten Bethany and I thinking that we need some sort of "none of the above," bracket, although I think I have an easier time slotting it into the drama section than she does, as to me at least that already feels like something of a catch-all.
And the movie? Definitely an interesting diversion, definitely worth seeing, definitely not a stereotypical Will Ferrell movie (thank God!), but on some level still a little dissattisfying just because you feel like it ought to have been deeper than it actually was. Still a worthwhile distraction if you get the chance, and given the dearth of movies that I've wanted to see recently, a welcome one, too.