Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction answers questions three, five, and six. The director uses Harold Crick as the vehicle to answer these questions.

For most of the movie, Harold lives a bland thought out life. Eventually he, upon learning about this unavoidable death, he chooses to change his life style. The director shows that you can choose to make yourself but sometimes it takes a monumental event to spark these changes. That then poses the question is it you making the choice to choose? Or is you only reacting to the event that takes place? I believe that under pressure many people shut down and don't act, and because this I think the movie shows that you do make your own decisions.

Towards the end of the movie Harold is faced with the decision of halting the creation of the book, or letting it take its course and accepting his death. This where the director addresses question five. Harold mulls it over and eventually decides that the book should be finished in it's original intended ending. He independently chooses to allow his death to happen even though the author makes it evident that he could have talked her out of it. If someone is faced with death and instead of running away from it, walks towards it, that decision shows that they are breaking the mold of human condition and making a independent choice. I think in real situations that matter it is easier to see if you are clearly making the decision for yourself or if someone is making it for you. The director shows us that is possible to make your own decision even if it means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, so to speak.

Stranger than fiction shows us that it's the little reasons that drive us to live our lives among all of the chaos and uncertainties. Close to the end of the movie the author of the book reads out loud the exert of the story the night before Harold's death. She speaks about the evening with Anne and how it was understood as normal but it really was so much more. Although the saying, "its the little things that count in life" is over used, it is very true. The director makes us think to ourselves: "What are the things in life that we care about? What comes to mind? What makes us get up in the morning?" My cat. My best friend. My customers at work. The Fall air. People have to live because if they just sat there, what would be the point of the journey? Oedipus's fate was inevitable but he didn't just live in ignorance. He sought the truth and got more meaning out of his life in a day than he probably did from all of his victories. Stranger Than Fiction illustrates this much the same but it's stretched over the course of a week or two. We life our lives because the point isn't to die the point is to gather experiences along the way. To learn, and to teach. To live on from the stories and lessons we give to others.