I’ve seen stranger things
Filed under Reviews on November 13, 2006
Tagged: movies, Stranger Than Fiction, Wil Farrell
My wife and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction on Friday. I think this picture will do for Wil Farrell what The Truman Show did for Jim Carrey. While I found myself laughing at many of Farrell’s lines, this was not your typical Farrell comedy. I think it would have been even better if it followed through with the tragedy theme, but this is Hollywood after all, and the happy ending did allow for some nice growth for Emma Thompson’s character. I liked the movie a lot, regardless.
One thing that struck me afterward was the lack of explanation for why Harold Crick heard the author’s voice narrating. It just happened. As a fantasy writer, this choice interested me. It did not affect my suspension of belief, largely due to the authenticity of the characters’ reaction to the fantastical.
The reason for my interest stems from the world-building process most fantasy writers go through before they even begin to write their story. This task often results in obsessive attention to detail in an attempt to create plausibility in the fantastic elements. I now have to wonder if perhaps paying more attention to the believability of the characters, and their reactions to the weird and wonderful, is more important than writing a treatise on the origins of a race or how magic works in one’s world.
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