Movie Thoughts: Stranger Than Fiction

I decided to add "movie" to titles so you don't have to accidentally read a spoiler in order to find out that I'm talking about movies. But remember, if I'm talking about a movie, there will probably be spoilers! Hard to discuss the philosophy of a film without discussing the plot, or more particularly key plot points like, say, the ending.

I love Stranger Than Fiction. We saw it in theaters, and I've seen it twice since, and I love it more each time. The clever graphics were great, and I loved the commentary for of the watch: "His wristwatch thought the single Windsor knot made his neck look fat, but said nothing." And it's cute and funny and romantic all around. Many great lines for great characters. I'm not usually a fan of Will Ferrell, but in this one I am.

But more than that, I love some of the thoughts in the film. At first it seemed to wander into the "live your life like it's your last day" genre, whereby people do ridiculous things and prove that all of us should live our lives wantonly, forgetting about responsibility or the future. But in the end, that's not the message of how to live one's life. Sure, by doing so he finally learns how to play guitar, and also starts a relationship with a woman he falls deeply in love with, but by the end of the film he goes back to work. Part of life is work, and work is not always fun. But the message of the film is not that life is having fun and a blast and living dreams and not doing work, but rather that life is in the accessories. Bavarian sugar cookies, wristwatches, good books, rock music, and the like can, literally, save our lives. Why? Because they add the accents and enjoyments to what otherwise all too often becomes a life mired down by the every day routines we have to suffer through. Granted this is a USA film and speaks to the USA situation, which may be avoided elsewhere. However I think the point still holds: if you can't find something to enjoy in life, you probably aren't really living. This doesn't mean quitting jobs until you find one you enjoy (because most of us never will find that job), but it does mean having something in life that you enjoy.

So, "go out and live the life you wish you had" doesn't mean "be irresponsible." Instead, it means "do things you love," which may often mean adding them to the things you don't. But hey, rocking out with classic guitars can make any job seem better, right?

But that's only part of why I love this movie. The other part is when Harold reads the book, and tells Karen to finish it. It's a good book, but I don't think he's sacrificing his life for the sake of career. I think he's doing it because it will save that boy. When Karen is asked why she changed the book, knowing it would not be nearly as good as if she had left it alone, she explains that it is because now Harold knew the ending. Before it was about a man who died at the end but didn't know he was going to die (the inevitability of death being one of the themes). Once he knows, it changes everything, because now the story is not about his death, but about how he handled facing his death. If I leap out in front of a bus on a spur of a moment to save someone, it says something about me: brave, "a bit stupid," loving of that person, caring of others, selfless. It will most likely affect how others interpret my life in general when they reflect back on it, hopefully adding a positive spin, or increasing it.

Everything changes, however, if I get up that morning knowing that by the end of the day I will leap in front of a bus to save a kid. In The Matrix: Revolutions, the Oracle points this out, saying that the real test of a choice is, having made it and now fully knowing the consequences, would one make the same choice again. By knowing in advance that I was going to die by leaping in front of the bus to save the kid, I now have a chance to process the impact. It's not a spur of a moment thing, a reflection on my character through snap judgment, but now it's a reflection on who I am when I have time to plan. And I could plan, and plan to not be there, to not have to save a kid, to not get killed. But if knowing all that, I still decide that saving that kid is more important, and I walk to work, and get smashed, well, that seems to say something very deep about my character.

And that is what Harold does. He reads the end of the book, and knows how his life will end. And yet despite that, he wraps up his life and chooses to let the book finish, chooses to die for the sake of some boy he has never met. And I love the movie because of how Karen puts it. If the book was about some guy dying without knowing it, well fine, kill him, I guess. But now it's about a guy who dies knowing what's coming, who willingly walks into death for the sake of someone else, and Karen says, isn't that the kind of person we want to keep alive?

Yes! Exactly! And so Karen writes a ridiculous ending that saves him, because such a person's life is worth far more than an excellent novel, even one that would mark a career's best work.

I love this movie.